Night Falls
by Etcetera Kit
Summary: Human rights do not exist. Conform or be hunted down. With four of their friends missing, Roger, Mimi and Mark set out to uncover the horrifying truth behind the government. AU.
1. A Cure

**Disclaimer:** It's Jonathan Larson's sandbox—I just play here because it's fun.

**Author's Note:** This is very AU, very sci-fi, and very much an experiment in style (more for later chapters.) My hard-drive crashed, I lost a year's worth of writing, so this is like catharsis. I'm writing it to get back into the proverbial swing of things. I apologize to no one for borrowing from all over the place. My only statement on where this came from is this: I have spent too much time lately reading _the Handmaid's Tale_ and _1984_—I watched _V For Vendetta_ the other day and that was the whipped cream on the pie. Here I am. This takes place before _I'll Cover You (Reprise) _and goes AU from there. The prologue focuses on Collins and Angel, but that is not where our lens will remain.

Reviews are appreciated, not required. Honest opinions and brains inside the heads are, though. Flames, praise, critiques… hit me. I've got a bottle of Absolut and a kung-fu bunny.

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**NIGHT** **FALLS**

By Etcetera Kit

**Prologue: A Cure**

"The latest outbreak has been at St. James' Secondary School, a private boarding school in East Hampton. The students began to suffer high fevers last week. Currently, one hundred and fifty-seven students have died. More are infected—"

"Do you fucking believe this?"

Tom Collins grabbed the remote, clicking the television off. Without the squawk box, the waiting room went back to being sterile, cold, uninviting. The white walls appeared bluish under the fluorescent lights. Magazines from years ago cluttered the chairs and tables. His back hurt from leaning against a garish orange chair. Hell, his back had hurt permanently from these chairs. The thought of these chairs made him ache. At least, when he was with Angel, she wanted him in the bed with her, not in one of these hellish chairs.

"No." Roger Davis took a drag on his cigarette. This waiting room was one of the only ones in the whole building that allowed smoking. Mimi was with Angel. Collins didn't like to leave her for long, but Mimi had told both of them to go smoke. Angel was sleeping—nothing was going to happen in the next half hour.

"And we thought AIDS was bad." He snorted. "It's like they're finding more viruses to unleash on us. Pretty soon everyone will be infected and dying of something."

"Schools," Roger replied. "It's all been at schools."

"Now we're going to attack educated people." Collins threw the remote into a vacant chair. "This country is turning into _1984_. George Orwell fucking called it forty years ago, and no one listened to him." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "And all this crap about uniformity? How long before that kills all expression and we have to conform or die?"

"You're dramatizing."

Collins just sighed. Roger was placating him. The rocker knew that his nerves were shot. Angel didn't have much time, combined with the new outbreaks and government going military about it, instead of looking for a cure. Part of him was glad Angel wasn't going to live to see this—he couldn't imagine her forced to dress as a man, unable to walk down the street, dancing to a rhythm in her head. That sort of thing would kill her faster than AIDS ever would. He placed a hand over his heart, rubbing, but knowing that the tightness wasn't going away. Angel… He loved her so much that it hurt. He didn't want her to die, but the cold truth…

Nothing was going to be the same.

"I wish he was."

The pair looked up as Mark Cohen walked into the waiting room. He sank into a chair next to Roger, clutching his messenger bag to his chest. Collins leaned forward. Mimi might have told him to smoke, but he couldn't calm himself down enough to light a cigarette, let alone enjoy one.

"I just got done talking to Maureen and Joanne," the filmmaker said softly. "Joanne's got some friend whose father is a senator. They're talking about cracking down on protestors—anyone who strays from the norm. Martial law is coming, according to them."

"Shit," Collins swore.

Roger leaned back, eyes wide. He turned to Collins. "Maybe you weren't dramatizing."

"The media is being pooled into one conglomerate," Mark continued. "Alexi wanted her directors and their lawyers present. It's going to be something like a one year program. Everything is going to be fed from one source."

"Fucking hell." Collins stood up. "There has to be something we can do. I'm not going to lie down and let liberty die."

Mark and Roger scrambled to their feet. "Where are you going?" Mark asked.

"Angel," he replied, a sarcastic edge to his voice. He felt strung out, hollow. Dear God, even if Angel was sleeping, her company was better than Roger, who couldn't understand what was happening, and Mark, who knew all too well. However, his solitude with Angel wasn't going to happen. The rocker and the filmmaker followed him down the hall and to the elevator.

None of them said anything as they made the journey to Angel's room. Mark looked pale and frightened, like he had never dreamed that life could come to this. Roger was frowning, probably trying to place himself in this picture. He hadn't had a band in over a year, just stayed around the loft writing songs, and intermittently helping with the sound equipment at the Green Onion. Nothing he did caused much of a splash—heterosexual, steady girlfriend despite their constant fights… Mark knew that his films brought too much forward. HIV, the homeless… _that_ certainly didn't have the ring of conformity. Outbreaks and the government wanted martial law…

Angel's hall was silent. That wasn't unusual for this time of night. The nurses stayed in their station and were supremely quiet on rounds. Collins rubbed his forehead. This night wasn't going to get any longer. Besides, he hadn't had a full night's sleep in months. He was so afraid that Angel might slip away while he was selfishly sleeping. The irrational side of his mind said that Angel wouldn't be tempted to sleep in a situation like this, but that was a lie.

He walked into Angel's room, and his heart froze.

"What _the hell_ are you doing!" he bellowed.

Collins frantically looked around, trying to determine the situation. A woman in a black tank top and jeans was near Angel's IV line. Her hair was in a simple ponytail, and she was Caucasian. Mimi was sitting in one of the chairs, a man leaning over her, checking her pulse. He was tall, lithe, and dark-skinned, indicating Hispanic or Pacific Islander descent.

"He's dying," the woman said simply. She turned towards them, a large syringe in her hand.

"It's poison," Collins hissed. "You're killing her!"

"It's not poison," the woman replied, sounding bored. "And he's already dying, what difference does that make?"

"You bitch!"

Collins started across the room, losing his footing when Roger grabbed him around the torso. He went down on his knees, breathing ragged, and cheeks damp from tears he hadn't been aware he was shedding.

"Mimi," Roger breathed from somewhere above Collins' shoulder.

"She's fine," the man said. "She'll sleep for an hour or so."

"We need an explanation," Mark said, his voice shaking. "You can't just barge into someone's hospital room without permission. We know someone whose a lawyer and she can—"

"Joanne Jefferson," the woman said. "She's a good lawyer, a good person." She paused. "She's also a lesbian, so she's at risk, as are most of you." Her eyes were distant, sad. The man stepped forward, holding his hands up.

"We want to help," he said slowly. "We have contacts in the government. Things will only get worse before they get better. Almost all of you are at risk. You're either homosexual, or you have AIDS, neither of which bodes well."

"Why us?" Mark asked, sounding confused. "We're no one! We live in a loft that doesn't have power or heat, and we don't ever have enough money for food, and—"

"So?" the man asked. "You live. You dream. Is there much more?" He paused. "Mark Cohen, currently employed by Buzzline, but you don't get your best footage from using what the show can offer. You get your best footage prowling the streets on your bike." He turned to Collins, still on the floor in Roger's embrace. "Tom Collins, MA, currently a professor of philosophy at New York University, specializing in a theory of actual reality that hinges on anarchy."

"How do you know all this?" Mark whispered.

"It doesn't matter."

"Why us?" the filmmaker repeated.

"You represent hope."

"I don't understand," Roger spoke up. "Mark said it—we're no one. Nothing we've ever done has made a difference. Why are you helping us?"

"You're not the only ones," the woman said. "Join us, and we offer protection, a chance to make a difference—"

"Those don't go together," Collins growled, unaware of how tight his chest had gotten. These people made no sense. "Those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither and will lose both," he intoned. Go back to Abraham Lincoln. That's how long these truths had been here, and that would all be lost in one fell swoop.

"I never said anything about forfeiting liberty. I am merely saying that we can hide you. We know of places that have little surveillance." She shrugged. "And people are easily bribed. None of this is foolproof, but we want to stop this. You can help in whatever fashion you wish." She paused, holding up the syringe. "And we have a cure."

Collins balled a fist against his heart. "A cure?"

"A cure," the woman repeated. "For AIDS. The cure has been here for as long as the disease, but no one wanted you to know that."

"Distribution of the cure?" Roger whispered.

The woman nodded. "If that's what you want to do."

"He is pretty advanced," the man picked up. "This will require a series of injections. The first will feed in through his IV. The initial injection will make him feel a hundred times better, but all injections must be administered for him to be cured."

Collins watched, unable to speak, as the woman shot the clear liquid into the IV. Angel continued to sleep, her expression peaceful. He felt torn. She couldn't be telling the truth. AZT was the best hope any of them had about delaying the onset of full-blown AIDS. All this time? A cure?

"Take him home in the morning," the woman said. "We'll be in touch."

She swept out of the room. The man crouched on the floor next to Collins, producing a small soft-side cooler. He unzipped it, revealing four packets. Each was labeled with a name. Angel's was on top—_Angel Schunard_, followed by a birth date and other information. The man lifted Angel's to reveal the others. _Thomas Collins, Roger Davis, Mimi Marquez…_

"One injection, once a week, until the supply is exhausted." He re-zipped the case. "One month from now, make sure all your friends are in the same place. We'll find you. And we'll send messages before then."

And he was gone.

Collins stared at the case in his hands. This was incredible. There was a different number of injections for each of them, he supposed, depending on how advanced each person was. Angel still had the most. Mimi, then Roger, then himself… one month… he couldn't process how he felt, what was happening… He wasn't sure how long it was before Roger released him and crossed the room to Mimi. She was still asleep. The rocker smoothed back her hair, probably remorseful over their last fight.

"Tom?"

Angel was awake. He awkwardly pushed himself off the floor, still clutching that precious case to his chest. The clock read a much later time than he thought it should have. They must have stayed frozen for much longer than he originally thought. "I'm here, baby," he whispered, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking her hand.

"What did they give me?" she asked.

"A cure," he replied, kissing her forehead. "A cure."

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The townhouse was quiet, for once. Collins breathed a sigh of relief. The place hadn't been built to accommodate seven people, most of whom had explosive personalities. Joanne had offered to let them all live in her house, simply because the mystery people had asked them all to be together, and her place had heat, and water, and all the things that the others places lacked. Plus, she had the space. Joanne and Maureen were in the master bedroom, while Roger and Mimi were on a futon in Joanne's former office. Mark had the sleeper-sofa in the living room, while he and Angel had the guestroom. He knew that Joanne had done that based on the fact that Angel was still weak, but, three weeks later, it was hard to tell that Angel ever had been sick.

He wasn't going to complain about having the guestroom. They had relatively more privacy than the others, including Maureen and Joanne, due solely to the floor plan of the house.

Angel was curled against his side, not sleeping, but silent and still. She spent a lot of time thinking. Collins had told her what happened in the hospital room that night, and she hadn't said much, just been quiet and thoughtful. They hadn't been able to go out very often, because of the increasing restraints. Tempers ran high and loud. Angel usually managed to calm everyone down, but then went into their bedroom and cried. The tears were also unusual. Angel did a lot of eccentric and eclectic things, but she rarely cried. Until now.

"Tom?"

"What, baby?"

"I'm thirsty."

He stifled a laugh. "You can't go get water by yourself?"

"Be my buddy?"

"Angel," he said, smiling in their darkened room. "Fine." He pushed back the covers, locating a pair of pajama pants. He pulled them on, aware that Angel was taking in the show. "I'm not going downstairs naked. Mark's on the couch and God only knows when Roger and Mimi might appear."

"You can just give me the full show later."

Collins shook his head. "It's a good thing I love you—"

"You love me bunches, don't even deny it." Angel got out of bed. She had already been wearing a tank top and running shorts, parts of an assortment of old clothes that she slept in. Well, slept in if he didn't get around to taking them off first. She pulled him out of bed. Once he was standing, she stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his nose.

Hands entwined, they went downstairs to the kitchen. Mark was sprawled on the couch, mouth slightly open, as he snored. The door to the office was shut. That much was good—Roger and Mimi weren't fighting.

The kitchen seemed different at night. The lights made it appear large and surgically clean. Various people, in different stages of agitation, went on cleaning rampages. Maureen and Joanne took turns, although Mark had been known to do odd housework when upset. Collins thought they were all nuts, especially since he and Angel never did dishes until there were no clean ones left. Laundry day meant there were no more clean clothes. Their apartment was cleaned when all the surfaces and chairs were covered in stuff and their bed doubled as a dresser. Oh well, their clothes weren't in their bed here, just all over the floor.

Angel got a glass from a cupboard, and filled it with tap water, not bothering with ice. She leaned against the counter, looking like a normal guy, standing in a normal kitchen, drinking some water. Her eyes met his over the top of the glass. "What?" she asked, a lilting laugh behind the word.

"Nothing," he replied. "You're the one that dragged me down here."

"And?"

"You're sexy," he added, stepping closer. Angel drained the glass, placing the used dish in the sink. Her lips curled into an amused smile. He closed the space between them, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer. She rested her hands on his chest.

"What are you thinking about, professor?" she whispered.

"We're cured," he said softly. "The normal lives we thought we could never have… It's all in reach now."

Angel nodded. Each of them had been to the clinic, and their doctors were amazed to report that the virus was gone. For Angel and Mimi, there was one more injection, but he and Roger were done, their doctors and Joanne's having pronounced them cured. "It's why we have to help," she said. "It's why we have to fight. What good is a cure when our lives could be wrecked anyways?"

"I know."

They both fell silent for a moment. Sometimes the situation was hard to believe. He kept expecting to wake up. Angel threaded her arms around his middle, resting her head on his shoulder. "I wonder if those people are ever going to come find us." She snorted into his shoulder. "That sounded like we're playing hide 'n' seek or Marco Polo."

Collins laughed, planting a kiss on her neck. "Maybe we could convince the others to play hide 'n' seek tomorrow. Might be good for us."

Angel smiled, moving her head so she could look at him. Collins would never understand how she could look so serene about everything. Roger could have torn into the house, screaming about giant hamsters destroying the city, and Angel would have just looked at him, blinked and gone back to whatever she had been doing.

She pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. He held onto it, seeking harder and deeper kisses. Angel's hands were at the back of his neck. This was—

"Hi guys."

Collins reluctantly broke the kiss, turning to see who had just entered the kitchen. Mark, half-asleep and without glasses, had wandered in, heading straight for the fridge. "I just want some juice," he muttered. His blonde hair was sticking up at odd angles.

Angel took Collins' hand. A goofy grin plastered itself over his face. "I think we can leave him to the juice," she whispered into his ear, breath hot on his skin. Mark didn't appear to have registered their exchange.

The trip upstairs and into their room seemed to take forever. Angel was everywhere—lips, teeth, tongue… Christ… his mind shut down and gave into what his body wanted.

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"Well, maybe if you would _do_ something—"

"I did do something! What the hell are _you_ doing?"

"No," Angel groaned. "No. No. No."

The loud voices continued from downstairs. That sounded like Maureen and Joanne were in the center of the fight, while Roger and Mimi were on the fringes. Collins shifted. Angel had extracted herself from his arms, and burrowed her head under the pillows. Not that that was unusual. Angel burrowed into blankets like some kind of mole.

"Make them stop!" Angel's voice was muffled and nothing more than a moan. "I can't deal with this anymore. Stop. STOP!"

Collins sat up, placing a hand on the center of Angel's back. "Baby?" he asked. Her shoulders were shaking. Fantastic. He scrubbed his hands over his face. Someone was in the bathroom, and, from the sounds of things, retching. Mark… the filmmaker's stomach gave him problems when he was stressed and this morning's fight seemed to have been stressful. Between Mark being unable to keep anything down and Angel melting down, he wasn't sure how they were supposed to survive.

He planted a kiss on Angel's bare shoulder, gently running a hand between her shoulder blades. Sighing, he located and pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He padded downstairs, the yells becoming clearer. Maureen and Joanne were on opposite sides of the kitchen, screaming. Mimi was hunched next to the fridge, eyes wide. She never got into the arguments unless she was fighting with Roger. The rocker was desperately trying to get them to stop, but his voice was lost under theirs.

Collins placed his pinkies in his mouth, emitting a shrill whistle. Maureen and Joanne stopped mid-sentence, staring at him. Roger mouthed 'thank you' at him.

"I don't care what the hell you were fighting about, but knock it the hell off," he snapped, temper coming dangerously close to an end. "Mark is in the bathroom throwing up, and Angel is in tears, and it's not even breakfast yet!"

He strode into the room and pulled the fridge open, taking out a bottle of water and a can of Sprite. Someone had put on hot water for tea and cocoa, and coffee was perking. "I know this entire living situation sucks, but think about someone besides yourselves for once!" He pulled a mug from a cabinet and filled it with hot water. The tin of tea bags was on the counter. He extracted one and placed it in the mug of hot water.

"I'm going to make sure Mark and Angel are all right. Stop bitching at each other."

Their soft voices floated out of the kitchen as he went to the ground floor bathroom. He knocked softly. "It's open," Mark said, his voice hoarse. Collins placed the Sprite and water under his arm, opening the door.

Mark was on the floor next to the toilet—paler than usual and his eyes were watery. He pushed himself into a sitting position as Collins entered. "You all right?" he asked.

The filmmaker nodded wearily. "I guess I'm back to saltines and plain toast today." He attempted a wane smile.

"Guess so." Collins handed him the tea and the Sprite. He reached into the medicine cabinet over the sink and pulled out the Tums. Mark set the Tums and the Sprite on the floor next to him.

"Thanks," he said softly.

"Let me know if you need anything else."

Mark nodded. "I will."

"You sure you're okay?"

"I don't think there's anything left in my stomach to come up." He paused, blowing on the tea to cool it. "Go check on Angel. He's probably fed up." Collins just gave Mark a level stare. "And I won't clean anything with chemicals until I've eaten something."

"I'll give you something better—see if you can convince Angel to pick up some of the clothes."

"I do value my life, you know."

Mark smiled. Collins laughed. Mark appeared to be doing better. But they all knew that he didn't talk about it when he felt under the weather. Roger, especially, had been overprotective of Mark. Collins wouldn't be surprised if Roger showed up in the bathroom with toast or crackers for Mark. Hushed voices came from the kitchen. If anyone was still squabbling, they were being quieter about it than normal.

He walked down the short hall from the downstairs bathroom to the small front hall. He swung himself around the newel post and took the stairs two at a time. Angel was sitting just outside their bedroom, back to the wall and knees drawn up to her chest. "Sorry," she said softly with a forced smile. He shook his head and handed her the bottle of water. She accepted it. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I used to be able to handle it, but now everyone's here and we're all fighting over milk and dirty dishes and who ate the last bagel—"

"We've always been able to go home," Collins interjected gently. "We've always been able to take some time apart and remember why we love each other." He snorted. "We've never had to deal with each other constantly."

"Is Mark all right?"

"He's fine."

"And Mimi?"

Collins shrugged. "She seemed fine as well. No withdrawal problems that I could see."

Angel unfolded her limbs. "I should go check on them." Her dark eyes were distant. "Make sure they eat something."

He sighed. That was Angel—always putting everyone else ahead of her. Make sure Mimi and Mark were all right and had breakfast before even thinking about eating herself. "Compromise—you go make Mimi those toad-in-a-hole things you two like so much, and I'll help Roger force some toast down Mark's throat, okay?"

Angel nodded. She was wearing gray sweat pants and his flannel shirt. Collins pressed a firm, but quick kiss to her lips. "It'll be all right," he whispered.

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_The Patriot Act… Homeland Security…_

When did difference become bad? Why do they hate so much?

_Immigrants, Muslims, Homosexuals, Terrorists…_

He had never thought he'd live to see a day when the meanings of words became twisted beyond recognition. Things that existed as mere words were imbibed with hatred and fear. People were afraid of difference. All the government asked for was conformity in exchange for security, in exchange for stopping the civil war, in exchange for… everything.

_Those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither and will lose both._

Abraham Lincoln said it. Collins said it in the days before he was taken. God, he had thought that Collins would die. Angel had been taken while he was walking home from work. The only person who would speak of what really happened was a shopkeeper, an old friend of Angel's family. He had listened to Collins on the phone, hearing those haunting, heart-wrenching sobs.

It wasn't long before Collins was taken too. He just stayed there, waiting, offering no resistance. Angel was gone and locked up somewhere, the subject of bizarre tests, so that was the fate that Collins wanted to share as well. Maureen and Joanne were taken during the night, while staying at the Jeffersons' summer home.

And still, the strange duo from the hospital never came.

He began to think that they were just part of the government, wanting them all in one place in order to abduct them. But why would they give them the cure? Angel and Collins went to Angel's childhood home in Philadelphia, where they were taken. Maureen and Joanne fled to Maine. He, Mimi and Mark stayed in Joanne's townhouse.

No hope. No word.

Until now.

The man from the hospital was in their living room. His name was Trent. He had no explanations for not coming sooner, he was sorry for what happened to their friends. He offered no false hope for saving their friends, but if they wanted to help, they could come with him.

_We've got nothing left to lose._

_Except each other._

Trent asked them to pack a small bag of clothing and personal items, nothing more than they could easily carry. He had done as asked, watching as Mimi packed a few pictures and one of Angel's skirts. He had Collins' jacket, the one Angel bought for him. Mark had items that belonged to Maureen and Joanne.

They got into a rickety truck, everything they had left in the bags in their arms. He watched the city melt into countryside. Was there anything left worth fighting for? Could they undo the twisted maze of madness the country had wandered through?

_1984…_

Collins and Angel would have fought. Maureen and Joanne would have fought.

So that was precisely what he was going to do.

Fight.

_To be continued…_


	2. A Proposal

**Disclaimer:** It's Jonathan Larson's sandbox. I continue to play here because it's fun. I also borrow shovels, buckets and seashells from other copyrighted items.

**Author's Note:** If all gorks are lorks, and no lorks are morks… who cares? It was Miss Scarlet in the Hall with the rope. When Batman is in trouble, he turns on the Jack Bauer signal. Jack Bauer laughs at Superman for having a weakness. Chuck Norris found out what color Smurfs turn when you choke them. I sold my soul for rock 'n' roll.

That actually makes a modicum of sense… I must need more Absolut.

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**NIGHT** **FALLS**

By Etcetera Kit

**Chapter One: A Proposal**

_Ten Years Later_

The night was hot. Roger Davis shifted, hoping that might relieve the oppressive heat. They were, for all intents and purposes, sleeping on a mattress with a sheet. Even a top sheet was too much. Sweat rolled down his neck and back. He felt sticky and was close to stripping down and taking a cold shower. The fan did little more than blow hot air over them, and the open window failed in tempting even the slightest of breezes.

Shit.

He sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He scrubbed his hands over his face and raked them through his hair. He rarely bothered to cut it, so his hair curled around his ears, most of the time falling to his shoulders. It was falling out of the rubber band. Great. Mimi didn't wake up.

Silver moonlight filled the room. They had been working with the Patriots for ten years. Ten, long, grueling years. The group took their name from the Revolutionary War, a time before, they contested, this country started on the shit-hole path it walked today. He and Mimi had gotten married shortly after joining the Patriots. Neither of them took much stock in traditional conventions, but Trent had explained that it would lower their risks. So they had married.

"_Is it wrong to hope?"_

"_Hope for what?"_

"_Hope that they're still alive."_

"_No, because I hope for that every day."_

Why did he even continue to harbor that faint glimmer of hope? Collins and Angel were dead. No one lasted ten years in the prisons. Maureen and Joanne were dead. They were all dead. And their deaths were completely in vain. Nothing had changed.

"_Still haven't left the house?"_

"_I was waiting for you, don'cha know?"_

Maybe he was still waiting for people that weren't ever going to come back. God, why didn't he want to accept that they were dead? Hadn't they promised each other on that New Year's almost eleven years ago to always be friends? Didn't being friends mean never giving up on each other? If he thought that he could breech security at the prisons, if he thought he could hack into the records and find out where they were being held, where they had been held… Even if all there was were empty cells, he wanted to see where they had died.

Sighing, he stood up and padded down the hall to the bathroom. This complex was like four others all over the country, designed more after a dorm than an apartment building. He flipped the light in the bathroom on, the effect being that of a supernova on his eyeballs. He shut the door and leaned over the sink. He and Mimi shared this bathroom with Mark. Four or five rooms were clustered together and each shared a living area and a kitchen. He didn't know the names of the people that shared their kitchen—they came and went so quickly there seemed little point.

Roger turned the facet on, watching the water gush for a moment. He then splashed some on his face, scrubbing the cool water over his cheeks, letting it wash away the sweat. He glanced into the mirror, the face staring at him not one he recognized. Several days' stubble was on his chin, and his hair looked wild and untamed. He looked closer to a wild animal than a person.

This place and the others like it were safe houses. Some of the Patriot fighters lived at each one. The rest of the people were fugitives. Sometimes the Patriots got to them first, sometimes the government. If the people got to their complexes, they were then smuggled to Canada or England, never staying more than a few days. Oh, the government knew they existed, but they also knew that no one would know what became of these people, and they could create a cover story.

They were in upstate New York. By far, the busiest and most dangerous complex was just outside of Arlington, Virginia. They had no hope of being assigned there. He and Mark had some technical expertise. For him, it was limited to sound equipment. Mark could handle lights, film, and things that screamed _arts_ and not _practical_. Mimi was a dancer, and had virtually no skills that the Patriots would find useful. They had all learned to fight and picked up the basics of the technology, but their jobs were not to fight. They all held jobs within government buildings and picked up information that could be useful. Mark was at the conglomerate television's branch in NYC. Mimi was an agent with the NYPD. He was secretary to the mayor.

"_We're living a lie."_

"_I know."_

Collins, Angel, Maureen, Joanne…

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It's like floating on the edge just between sanity and madness. You know that they spin lies. You know that there's a world beyond these four walls. You know that you once had dear friends, a lover, people that would die for you. You know the truth. You know why you're here, and yet, you wonder if they might be telling the truth. You wonder if you truly are degenerate, evil.

You wonder if everything was a dream. If she was a dream, if you were a dream, if they were a dream… a dream within a dream. She has the cell next door. You don't know how she managed to, but she got a hold of a pencil stub and hid the toilet paper before that was outlawed as well.

_To face the fear and not feel scared._

You truly have nothing left to lose. Life was once precious and you lived by the motto 'no day but today'. Now, death seems like a retreat, a balm, but it is the one thing that they will not grant you. They know that you hope for death—that the torture will be just too much, that the vaccine for the latest virus won't work, that you'll stave to death…

You've tried to stop eating. They force-fed you. You've tried to drown yourself in the dank toilet. A guard prevented it. You've tried any means to do yourself in. They only tied you down, until you no longer had a will of your own. Resistance has become a foreign concept. Death is the one reprieve that they will not grant you. You've been kept alive for years, a mere shell of your former self.

You scream her name in your dreams. She screams his. You spend long nights listening to her cries, vowing over and over to never forget him. You wish you knew where the others were. You wish you knew anything beyond these walls and the cries of a friend half-mad. You saw her once, when the doctors lined you up for injections. If you hadn't seen the spirit sparking under those dark eyes, you wouldn't have recognized her. She looked like everyone else, but was standing with the men. They hadn't broken her. She wasn't a ghost.

As fast as she showed you that spark, her eyes were back to being dull, lifeless. She's a better actor than you, and you admit that their words are cracking your defenses.

That was the last time you saw her fully. But you know she is the one next door to you. The mouse-hole between your cells connects you.

"Maureen." Her voice is hoarse, dry, as if she hadn't used it for anything other than screams in a long time. You crawl across the cell, hope flaming. Your body is sore and protests, but you drag yourself to that little hole of salvation.

"Angel." Your voice is full of emotion, desperation. Things you had forgotten you could feel were back, dry sobs heaved your wasted body.

You don't remember the conversation. You just remember the two mottoes: _no day but today_, and _la vie boheme_. They become your mantra. Nothing is too bad to bear. You've got Angel with you. If you reach through that mouse hole, you can barely brush her fingers.

"I miss Tom."

"I know. I miss Joanne. It hurts—"

"Like a piece of you was torn out."

_What can't we face if we're together?_

You and Angel, unlikely companions and odd warriors. Together, you know that the madness can never truly claim you. Angel has the paper, writing down your story, her story… the story that all of you are a part of. If someone, anyone, reads it, then you will have lived on. You both know that you will die in this prison. You cannot get beyond the walls, but you know that there is an entire world out there. There is no hope.

But you have each other.

That is all that matters anymore.

--------------------

Roger pushed himself up from the sink. Almost in a trance, he turned the water off and grabbed a hand towel, blotting the moisture from his face. The water hadn't done much to relieve the heat, but it made him less groggy, less dreamy. His watch read 0437—too early for anything important to be happening. The nights seemed to drag on. Shutting off the light, he left the bathroom and padded into the living room. A single lamp was on.

Mark was hunched over the computer. One fan blew on him, while another was aimed at the computer. The machine was the best that money could buy. But the air didn't stop the beads of sweat that ran down the bridge of his nose. His glasses kept slipping and he pushed them up, ignoring the annoyance and discomfort.

"_You and Mimi need to have children. It will—"_

"—_lower our risks. I know."_

They had two children, children that weren't even a possibility ten years ago. Infected with AIDS, neither of them wanted to bring children into the world with the disease. He loved his children, remembering the awe and joy that surrounded each birth. He would have liked to have them without the urging of the Patriots, but if they wanted to help others like their friends… One boy and one girl. Thomas Angel had just turned seven, while Joanne Maureen would soon be five. They were educated in the complex, playing with other children of the Patriots. Mark was their godfather.

"What are you doing?"

Roger crossed the small room and pulled a chair from the table. He angled it next to Mark, so he could see the screen of the computer. "Pam wrote a program," the former filmmaker said. Pam also lived in the complex, but was younger than them, having received an advanced degree in computer science. She was their tech genius.

"A program?" Pam was always writing programs. That wasn't unusual.

"This is supposed to let me into any powered on computer system."

"Mark, it's five in the morning. Most people don't have their computer systems on."

"Prisons do."

"Right."

They fell silent. Roger knew exactly what Mark was doing—searching the prison records for names, four specific names. The glare of the screen reflected off Mark's glasses, making his eyes appear otherworldly. They both needed to be in bed. Mark had to leave for work in another hour. Roger had a staff meeting at seven.

"Any luck?"

"No. It's like they never existed."

They were dead. Both of them knew that. They had all been part of the first purge of anyone different. Perhaps, if they had all stayed together, things would have panned out differently. The four could have paired off, put on a façade, pretended… and been untrue to themselves and their love. Why? He would never understand. Things had been slowly getting better, only to have it all cut out from underneath them.

"Wherever they were is hidden and off the records."

Mark nodded. "I just want to know what happened to them."

"We probably don't want to know."

"Ignorance is bliss," Mark intoned with a sad smile. "Call me crazy, but I want to know."

Roger sighed. They had been through this again and again. They all wanted to know where the others had been taken, see where they had been. But no record of them appeared after their abduction dates ten years ago. Mark had been through the prison records again and again. The prisons they could access were public knowledge. People who had actually done something wrong went there. But for their friends… the place had to be hidden.

He might say that they didn't want to know, but he wanted the knowledge as badly as Mark. "Too bad we don't know anyone who works for the IRS," he muttered dryly. "Nothing escapes them."

Mark snorted. "That's unlikely to happen." He closed the browser windows on the screen.

Until they learned what really happened to Collins, Angel, Maureen and Joanne, Roger knew that none of them would truly rest. There was no sense of closure. Collins might have given up resistance before he was taken, but none of them had been dead. Death might have spelt closure, but that was gone. Everyone knew there were hidden facilities, but no one knew where they were or what went on there. Roger had pictures of Holocaust camps. Mimi once told him she thought the facilities must be like the old insane asylums from the movies—dark, damp and filled with terrifying rooms of torture devices.

Mark clapped him on the shoulder as he stood up. "I will find them," he said softly, urgently. "They need to see their niece and nephew."

--------------------

I don't know what time it is. I never know what time it is. Day and night, it's all the same. I thought this prison was underground the first time I was in my cell. I thought that was how they kept the constant darkness. I knew either the dim cell, lit only by the lights from the halls, and harsh fluorescent bulbs. Now, I've had too much time to think and concoct wild stories about how they keep it dark in here. It's rather like living in a broken refrigerator, cool, but not cold enough to keep the lunch meat and yogurt from spoiling.

The cells are completely bare. The only thing worth noting is the toilet, never cleaned, but also never backs up or does any of the things the toilets in my apartments did. I wonder how they managed to build failsafe plumbing. That's a good plumber.

I picked the pencil stub from a table during one of the many injections. A long time ago I had injections to cure me. Now, the injections are to infect me, and then repel whatever was injected. No one noticed the broken bit of wood and lead. I managed to hold it as they injected me and threw me back into my cell.

The paper was harder, but I knew that, despite the barbarity of our situation, none of the guards or doctors wanted someone shitting on the floor. Just more to clean up. Two guards took me to a bathroom that was obviously for the doctors. It was clean and light. That's where I got the toilet paper. So my life—our life—is about to be recorded on toilet paper. It's better than nothing.

I stretch out across the floor. I hid the paper and pencil stub in the mouse hole. A mouse hole. This prison is state-of-the-art, yet there are mouse holes. I'm not sure that anyone actually checks these cells. The last inmate must have died, and I got the cell. It reminds me of the Chateau d'Ife from _the Count of Monte Cristo_. Tom had a copy of that book. I read it at work, once. It was all about a prison break. You think it'd be more useful now.

"Angel."

It's her voice—raw, destroyed, not the beautiful soprano that it once was. Mouse holes. We're not supposed to be able to communicate with anyone else while in our cells. I'd be worried about it, if I thought that someone in charge actually cared. Most of the doctors thought we are too insane to know what is happening. They think we're slobbering in our cells. Sometimes I feel a great swell of pity for them, so narrow-minded.

"I'm here, Maureen." I crawl to the mouse hole, just able to make out her hand and part of her face. The doctors are testing a new drug on her. It's bad. She hasn't been able to keep food down for three days, just a little water. One of Tom's spy novels had said that a human could go three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food.

"Have you written more?"

I've tried to write about my life. But it seems to pale in comparison to my current situation. I had an accepting, loving family that supported my decision to move to New York. I won a full scholarship to a fashion school. I worked as an underling designer at a major design company. I had a comfortable apartment, friends that loved me, an amazing lover… my life was something straight off prime time television in 1955. Sure, I had a boyfriend that I got AIDS from, but I met Tom and he had AIDS too…

The interesting part came with the cure. Two months, well, one really, we were cured. Then difference became a bad thing. Just under a year I had Tom, I had unconditional love, I had someone that truly understood me, and it was all gone.

"Yes."

"Angel?"

"What?"

"Is it bad that I hope this drug will kill me?"

"No, because I wish for that with each new injection."

"Is it sad that our lives have come to this?" She paused. She was so beaten down, unable to understand why anyone would do this to a fellow human being. This conversation is one that we have often. I know the words, the responses. They never change, but they are always true. "Do you ever think about Collins?" she asks.

"All the time." I don't add that he gets me through each minute. I remember his kisses, his tears, his laughter, the way he hated mornings, the way he could get through an entire bottle of Stoli if someone let him… His eyes would light up with mischief. I love him. And I know that he still loves me. Love… that is the one thing no one has taken from us.

We grow silent. Maureen will sleep before she retches the food they forced her to eat. Hope is gone. We're both going to die here.

I think about the others sometimes. Maureen told me that Collins was taken shortly after me. I knew he'd do something like that, wanting to share the same fate. She and Joanne were taken at the same time. Mark, Roger and Mimi had stayed at Joanne's townhouse in the city. I hope that they got away, that they're living a life somewhere. I hope that Roger and Mimi get to have a huge family. I hope that Mark finds a nice girl to settle down with. I don't keep hope for myself, because there is none. But there is hope for others.

Hope for Mark, for Roger, and for Mimi.

I used to wonder why they hated so much, what I had done. I realize that people don't need a reason to hate. Fear is a good enough reason.

_If I could just have one more day…_

It was ridiculous. It was pointless to hope for. But I did. I guess I could call it my guilty pleasure, the only thing I didn't tell Maureen. I desperately want one more day with Tom. Just once more, I want to be his Angel, his love… his guardian Angel… God…

Maureen once asked me how I could continue to believe in God. I know why. God doesn't do most of this shit—people do. In junior high, my parents told me the kids would be better in high school. In high school, it was college kids would be better. The hierarchy moved on. I learned that people don't get better with age, they just learn more ways to be cruel. They'll all get what's coming to them. I might be dead before it does…

Fucking hell.

Love and vengeance.

Now I know I'm going crazy.

A whisper, a caress… "Tom…"

-------------------

The cool spray of the shower pummeled him into full awareness. Mark had already left for work. Mimi tended to report in at about nine. Since her promotion, she was able to be lax with her schedule. Roger rested one hand on the tiles, raising his face to the water. He needed to get the kids up after he was done in here. Their school started at seven-thirty. Mimi would make sure they got there. Besides, he ran the risk of getting fired if he was late.

He shut off the water and grabbed a towel. Shave, make his hair look presentable, put on the goddamned suit and tie… the motions were commonplace and he did them without thinking. There was once a time when he would have been horrified. Hadn't he wanted to be a musician to escape the bounds of society?

He was just pulling his shirt on when someone knocked on the bathroom door.

"Roger?" Mimi called. "You need to come see this!"

Frowning, he opened the door. Mimi was already gone. The television in the living room was on. Mimi stood before it, her arms wrapped around her middle. No one else was awake. He stood next to her, taking in the screen.

The reporter was pudgy, sweating, like he knew the story was false. "This facility was uncovered at Alkali Lake. It appeared to have been abandoned for some time. There were no bodies that we could find. The government will make a full investigation into the terrorists that were responsible for this death camp."

Roger snorted. "They're going to go after themselves?"

"Is it possible that they were there?" Mimi asked softly, her brown eyes full of worry.

He sighed. "That's way the hell out in Michigan. I don't know why anyone would move them so far." He paused. "But you heard the man, there were no bodies. They were probably moved."

"Some civilian probably stumbled across them and ran before they could kill him."

They were silent. He found it almost sad that they knew exactly how the government wove their webs of lies. His hands went to Mimi's waist, pulling her towards him. With a contented sigh, she settled against his chest, one hand over his heart. "Think you can pull a permit to look at their investigative report?" he asked softly.

Mimi glanced up at him, a smile on her face. "That is easy." She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. "You need to get the kids up. And Mark wants you to meet him at the deli for lunch."

"Why didn't Mark tell me this himself?"

"He was late and you were in the shower."

"That hasn't stopped him before."

Mimi smiled. "He also got an emergency page for this broadcast."

Roger shook his head. He had known Mark for close to fifteen years. They had met in jail after a bar raid. Mark had been freaking out, as that was his first time in jail. Roger had told him to relax. He knew Collins from his failed attempt at college. The then grad student had bailed them both out and bought them dinner at the Life Café. God, the Life… he had actually walked past where their favorite hang-out had been. Nothing was there now.

His songs and Mark's films were gone now. They had left everything behind when Trent came to the townhouse. Most of that stuff had been in Joanne's floor safe, in the closet of the master bedroom. By now, someone had to have gotten into that safe and destroyed everything. The Patriots already had them, so there wasn't much that the government could do.

He gently rubbed Mimi's arm and went down the hall to his children's room. That particular room was the largest in their cluster, but was divided with screens and furniture to make two spaces. Tommy was lying face down on his bed, snoring softly. Jo was on her side, clutching a rag doll to her chest. Their room was as hot as his and Mimi's. God, he wanted to know what weird government restriction made it impossible to get air conditioning.

"Tommy!"

The boy jolted awake, glanced at his father and groaned. "S' time to get up?"

"Yes," Roger replied simply. Tommy sat up, rubbing his eyes. He'd need to get into his school uniform, brush his teeth and hair. He moved around the dividers to Jo's half of the room. He gently shook her shoulder. She opened her eyes. "Jo, get up," he said softly. She stretched and reached for her uniform, folded at the end of her bed.

Satisfied that they were moving, Roger left their room. Mimi was just outside the door, her arms wrapped around her middle again. "What's wrong?" he asked. She tended to want to be near to him when she was upset. All those years of fights when they first met, the withdrawal… and they had a comfortable intimacy now.

"I'll get that report from Alkali Lake," she whispered. "But I'm not sure I want to know what's in it." Her large brown eyes brimmed with unshed tears.

"I don't either," he replied. "But we'll have to. None of us will rest until we know."

Empty cells, names, numbers… what had the government done to these people that they didn't want anyone else to know about? Maybe if the people knew the real truth, there would be a massive uprising. Roger suspected that there were things his sick imagination couldn't conjure. Things that were so horrible no one would repeat them, because there was no one else in the world that could possibly believe them.

And it wasn't fair. He, Mimi and Mark got to have the life that the other four were denied. He and Mimi got to have children, live a relatively normal married life. Mark had never married, but, even without the 'godly' government, he couldn't picture Mark settling down, so to speak. He preferred the ability to roam, do what he wanted on his own terms.

Who the hell decided to stop treating people like people?

He followed Mimi into their bedroom. Angel's skirt was over a chair—it was the white one, with the flowers, the one that he wore to the Life Café after Maureen's protest. Collins' jacket was on that same chair. Both items had seen that night at the Life. God, Collins never went anywhere without that jacket. It was why Roger nearly fell over when Collins sent it to him. Opening up that FedEx box and finding… Christ! It wasn't fucking fair.

Sighing, he buttoned up his shirt and tucked it in.

_Actual reality! Act up! Fight AIDS!_

Fuck.

He grabbed his tie off the dresser. They were supposedly fighting, gathering what information they could. But this wasn't how Collins' would have done it. Collins would have rallied as many people as he could have, and had them march on some building. He would have blown something up, gone on the television station… done something dramatic.

But he didn't know what he was supposed to do.

--------------------

The deli was on the corner of Forty-Sixth Street. He and Mark, literally, worked just blocks from there. So much had changed. What used to be hotels, large storefronts, novelty souvenir shops, restaurants, had become utilitarian government buildings. This deli probably only existed to feed the government workers that didn't want to eat in their building's cafeteria.

The place was teeming with people. Roger entered, glad that this establishment had air conditioning, unlike anywhere else. Mark waved at him. The former filmmaker had gotten a small table in the back, near a window. The former rocker pushed his way through the people, sinking into the chair across from Mark.

"Roast beef on wheat," Mark said without preamble, handing him a foil-wrapped sandwich.

"Thanks."

Mark shrugged. "There was apparently a clerical error. I've got about five times as many stim-credits as I should."

Roger unwrapped the sandwich. "Did you report it?"

"What for?"

He smiled. There was a crumpled up ball of foil on the table, meaning Mark must have already eaten. At least he wasn't having stress problems and throwing up all over the place. That happened less and less frequently as the years went on. Now it only happened around 'elections.' There weren't really elections, since the same people won by a landslide and had no competition, but the television stations were expected to have round-the-clock coverage.

"I think you had a good idea this morning."

Roger blinked and swallowed his current mouthful of sandwich. "Excuse me?"

"The IRS." Mark gave him and expectant look, then groaned when he remained confused. "You said that it was too bad we didn't know anyone who worked for the IRS. Everything is documented with the IRS. If there's one thing this country doesn't fuck around with, it's the taxes."

"But we don't have anyone that can get that information, or, at least not the kind of information that we'd be looking for."

"All in due time." Mark was enjoying having the upper hand. Roger rolled his eyes. "Now it would be safe to assume that any electronic records have been, shall we say, accidentally deleted." Roger grunted in agreement. "So we have to get to the hard copies."

"How?"

"Mimi."

That was expected. "She can't get records outside the reports unless they pertain to her case."

"Then we just have to get the Alkali Lake case assigned to her."

"It's not in her jurisdiction."

Mark steepled his fingers. "Not yet. I know a guy that writes the cover stories that we broadcast. He said there was a records room there that held the back-up records for other facilities like Alkali Lake. The room had been burned. The government doesn't want us to know that."

"It's still not in her jurisdiction."

"Even when a New York man was found murdered at the scene?"

Roger leaned back in his chair, a smile spreading over his face. That was more than enough reason for the NYPD to get involved. For their purposes, it would be under the pretense of investigating the murder, but they could also get the IRS to release tax information. "Very nice," Roger commented. "Did you tell Mimi all this?"

"I stopped by the station before I came here."

Hope. There it was again, that little, foreign word that held so much power. They all hoped for things that would most likely never be. Alkali Lake meant something—it meant that they might begin to get definitive answers. Certainty… there was a concept that he had almost forgotten about. Trent had offered them no certainty ten years ago. But they came here with him, surviving, and wondering what had happened to Collins and Angel, to Maureen and Joanne. Their names were almost a mantra now. He, Mark and Collins had been the Three Musketeers before they met Benny, before Mark started dating Maureen. Mimi and Angel had met at some fashion show, becoming best friends shortly after that. Joanne found Maureen at one of her many protests. Maybe it was fate, maybe it was coincidence… fuck, he didn't believe in coincidences anymore.

This was their battle. It didn't belong to Trent. It didn't belong to the Patriots. It belonged solely to them. Others surely had the same agenda, but lacked the resources to do it. Just to see any of them again, hear their voices, hug them…

_We've cried together. We've laughed together. We've loved together._

_What binds the fabric together when the raging, shifting winds of change keep ripping away?_

_Call their bluff…_

Hope was the one thing that people desperately needed. But there was no one to deliver. God, he wished he could make himself care about liberty, fear, security, the things that kept people in their place, but he just wanted their family back together. God, Angel and Collins would have loved being a part of the Patriots. Angel took kickboxing lessons for years, and could turn just about any item into a weapon. Collins was good at computer viruses, and blowing things up—and that had been ten years ago. Roger couldn't imagine what he'd accomplish now.

"Want to go hijack some chocolate chips?"

Roger shook his head, focusing on Mark. The blonde was grinning. Some food items had been in short supply. _Some_… more like _anything that isn't necessary for basic nutrition._ Roger knew where the supplies for the city council buildings were delivered—chocolate, butter, sugar, wine… The process was easy. Most of the delivery boys assumed he was inspecting, making sure that everything was perfect for the mayor. And Mark, as a part of the television crew that came to the building to film the mayor's speeches, had clear access too. All that stuff went to good use at the complex. They had scraped enough stuff together to make chocolate chip cookies last week.

He finished his sandwich, crumpling the wrapper. "Sure. There should be a delivery truck just about now."

"I know. I saw it dropping off stuff further uptown."

"Chocolate chips, here we come!"

Sometimes, for fleeting moments, it was like the past ten years hadn't happened, and they were living in that industrial loft again, arguing about cereal and coffee, having paper fights just because they could… Mimi had actually been horrified to see him, Mark, and Collins break down and have a full-out pillow fight. He supposed it had something to do with the fact that three grown men weren't supposed to pelt each other with pillows… It hadn't helped matters that Angel jumped into the fray and won.

Then reality set in, and he remembered how precautious his life was. He didn't want to lose anyone else close to him. Mimi… Tommy and Jo… Mark… they were all he had left.

They threw their trash out and moved outside the deli. He wished that he still had a guitar. Musical instruments were in short supply. He hadn't been able to bring his guitar when they left, and he doubted that the townhouse had remained untouched.

_One song glory…_

He turned to Mark as they walked down the sidewalk. "Can we, just, run away?"

The former filmmaker gave him a sidelong glance. "I hear Tahiti is nice this time of year."

--------------------

"I don't think you're complying with the recommendations the Home Office issued."

The guard looks at me without blinking. Yeah, he doesn't know what the Home Office is, or what they have to do with prisons that don't exist. There is one doctor here, Paul, that lets me read the paper. That's the only reason I know that the newly created Home Office wanted to improve life for prisoners, in hopes of rehabilitating them. The real prisoners were getting blankets and beds and choices of clothing… My cell had a toilet, and I've been wearing the same orange burlap sack since arriving. I've got to be pretty stinky by now.

"They don't apply to us," the guard grunted.

"Then what's the point of them?"

"Shut-up!"

He backhands me across the face. I'm not startled by it. He's the guard that likes to slap people to feel powerful. However, none of that relieves the sting. I straighten, rubbing my cheek. He just doesn't know what to make of a prisoner that knows more than him. I fall silent. The last thing I really want is a random beating from a random guard.

I think this guard is taking me to Paul. He's a psychiatrist or something, trying to analyze me and figure out how to 'cure' me. I don't mind all the ridiculous questions. I've explained to him time and time again that I don't believe in sexuality, just love. So what if the person I fell in love with happened to also be a man? If I'm nice, Paul might let me do the Sunday crossword. Yeah, I think I will be nice. I'm constantly bored out of my mind here. The crossword will at least relieve that monotony for an hour or so. Maybe he'll let me have the whole newspaper.

Ah well. This prison isn't what I expected. I thought of old horror movies, with bizarre experiments, little to eat… Well, the little to eat thing, and the fact that our cells had only toilets were accurate, but the bizarre experiments weren't there. I think there's a whole team of psychiatrists here that are supposed to be playing mind games with us. The only reason I guess that is because I've heard people, half out of their minds, screaming. I never fell prey to mind games before this regime, because I was the master at playing them.

I used to buy those puzzle magazines with crosswords and number games and such in them. Angel always did the logic problems. I never understood how she got through one of those things so quickly—she actually timed herself once, and did the large one in less than ten minutes. Something about how her mind is wired. Is. I feel like I should say 'was', since I don't know what happened to her. But…

I sigh. Angel.

I wish I knew where she was, what had happened to her. The constant ache for her had dulled, becoming a void that only she could fill. I hope she's not in pain. And I really hope that she's not in a psych prison like mine. God, she was a fighter and didn't want anyone to judge her on anything except her own merits, but after months and months? She would resort to tears, eventually shutting down completely.

"Good afternoon, Thomas."

Christ, are we in the office already? Office. I snort. This place is a stone room with a table and two chairs. "Collins," I correct automatically. Angel was the only one that called me by my first name, simply because screaming 'Collins' during sex was awkward. At least for her. Roger might have pulled out the first name once or twice to piss me off… but I was just Collins. I wish that this smarmy little doctor would figure that out.

"Collins," Paul concedes. "Now, I'd like very much to hear about your theories on love."

"It happens." Not anymore, but still…

"Your lover, Angel, what did he think about love?"

"She."

Paul looks pained, but gives me the concession yet again. "She… what did she think of love?"

"She loved it." I resist the urge to laugh at my own exceedingly lame joke. Ah, Angel, she would have a field day with this guy. To think, the guy that led our Life Support meetings had been named Paul. Such irony…

Paul asks me something else. I ignore it. The morning's newspaper is still sitting on his desk and I crane my neck to see the headline. _Secret Terrorist Facility at Alkali Lake._ Huh. That looks like it might be interesting. The newspapers are the only way I know that I've been here for ten years. It's my home now, no hope of ever getting out. I suppose they'll either brainwash me or starve me to death. Maybe I'll get lucky and someone will take me out back and shoot me.

If I get lucky.

Yeah right.

I turn on the charm and the BS for the good doctor. I really want that newspaper. I don't know why this continues to work. Maybe good ol' Paul really is _that_ dim. It wouldn't surprise me overmuch. A little while later, I'm back with the sunshine and bubbles guard, the newspaper clutched to my chest.

Back in my cell, I spread out the paper, horror clutching my heart. Secret facility, like ours, abandoned, burned… Fuck! What if Angel was there? What if…

"Mother fucker."

_To be continued…_

--------------------

**Author's Note v. 2.0:** Okay, time for a gooey show of emotion down here and a few serious notes. Thanks to everyone who has dropped a review—I appreciate all the honesty in first impressions of this piece. Continue to be brutally honest, I beg of you! Now, a quick note on the POVs: second person will always be Maureen, while first person is either Angel or Collins. The first person should be apparent from what is happening. That is not to say that those three will always exclusively be in those POVs, but, for now, they are. _To the groundhog!_


	3. A Case

**Disclaimer:** Still playing in Jonathan Larson's sandbox, and still borrowing toys from the other copyrighted kids.

**Author's Note:** Stress: A reaction caused when the mind overrides the body's desire to beat the living shit out of someone who deserves it.

--------------------

**NIGHT** **FALLS**

By Etcetera Kit

**Chapter Two: A Case**

Mimi Davis leaned back in her chair, rolling her shirt sleeves up to her elbows. Their office was thick with cigarette smoke, combined with the dim light, they might as well have been starring on an old gangster movie. Except they were the cops. Officer Cortland was just outside, talking into a phone. His voice could be heard as occasional peaks through the glass that separated the cubicles and her office. Sergeant Davis… she wasn't sure what she had done to get the promotion, other than being in the right place at the right time.

Cortland hung up the phone and swung into her office, looking like some kind of overgrown ape. Mimi inwardly snorted. She used to call Roger that, years ago. He would do incredibly stupid, albeit, extraordinarily masculine things, and she would call him an ape or a pig, depending on the offense. She still called him a pig when they got into arguments over field work with the Patriots. He said that the kids needed someone, and she retorted that he should stay.

It wasn't right, using Tommy and Jo as bargaining chips. God knew that neither of them had asked to be born and brought into this hell. They were just kids, but Roger was right. What would their kids do if something happened to one or both of them? It was a good reason for both of them to steer clear of field work. She had said as much. The tension was still there, but they didn't volunteer for field operations anymore. She and Roger—and Mark—had to sit down and decide what their future with the Patriots was, and if this Alkali Lake thing worked out…

"Sarge, we've got clearance! They're sending us the case file."

Cortland was talking about Alkali Lake. What else would he be talking about? She nodded, leaning forward so her chair was on all four legs. She pushed back from her desk. "I want that file on my desk the moment it arrives. Don't let Tucker or Garret so much as breathe on that thing."

"Yes m'am!"

"And Cortland… go see if Aggie brought our cake donuts."

The young officer grinned. "Right away."

Mimi scooted forward so she was on the front lip of her chair. What kind of cops would they be if they didn't have donuts? She reached out, gently brushing her fingers against the picture on her desk. Tommy and Jo on the swings at the complex. Both of them had light brown hair and brown eyes, but Tommy looked like Roger, angular, square features, a smile to light up the earth, but a frown to drown everyone with him. Jo was more like her, softer features, large eyes. There had never been any dispute about their names. Thank God they had one boy and one girl… although with two girls, Mimi would have named one Angel.

God, Roger had actually been singing in the shower that morning. Singing! He rarely sang, not since they left ten years ago with Trent. The words had been nonsense, but he had belted them out like nothing else. He and Mark had managed to commandeer more chocolate chips and two bottles of wine a couple days ago. Last night, he had thought it would be a good idea to teach Tommy and Jo how to make cookies. Roger was bizarre, always had been.

What if they actually found the others or what had happened to them? They might not talk about it, but they were working with the Patriots in hopes of finding them or what happened to them. God, if they did find something about Angel, Collins, Maureen and Joanne… would they leave the organization? They could always flee to Canada or England. She and Roger had enough money to get themselves and the kids, and perhaps two others across the border. Mark could probably cover more than that. Would they flee? Would they stay to help others like themselves?

Ten years ago, still going through withdrawal, she would have thought her current life impossible. She had AIDS. She was an addict. She was a stripper. None of those things seemed to scream long life, family, lasting career… but here she was. Married to Roger, the mother of two great kids, a sergeant with the NYPD… And barely thirty. It was an accomplishment.

_Count your blessings instead of sheep._

Tommy and Jo were normal, with no birth defects or other disorders. God, she had been terrified during each pregnancy that something would happen. She and Roger had both been addicts, and, while they had been clean for years before having kids, she still worried. The doctors at the complex had assured them that the kids were fine, developing normally… but still… Angel would have laughed at her worry. After all, they had been cured. Lives they had thought they couldn't have were before them again. Then again, Angel would have promptly driven Collins nuts by making them baby clothes and blankets.

Roger, for all his mood swings and eccentricities, loved them. He helped take care of the kids, splitting their work fifty-fifty. In fact, he had been taking most responsibility now that she had the promotion and had to work longer hours. He sang the kids to sleep every night without fail. There were nights he almost fell asleep. They comforted each other when they thought too long and too hard about Angel and Collins.

And Mark, a brother to her and Roger, an uncle to the kids, and a tireless fighter when it came to finding the others. He would sit for hours, sometimes, and stare out the window. It was like his fingers were itching for his camera, left behind at the townhouse with Roger's guitar. They couldn't risk creating their art.

"Case file!"

Cortland waltzed into the office, holding a thick manila folder in one hand and a box of donuts in the other. He set both items on her desk. He was younger than her by about five years, meaning he never had a chance to come out of the closet. She seriously suspected he would come out of the closet if things ever changed… "Coffee?" he asked, batting his eyelashes.

"Yes, please," she said with a smile.

"French vanilla or the house blend?"

The house blend meant whatever Maxwell House crap the precinct bought. "French vanilla," she replied. "Nothing in it." Cortland knew that. He grinned and waltzed back out of the office. He'd be back with the coffee and to help her comb through the file.

Mimi tugged the file towards her. If there was one thing she had learned about being a cop in this day and age, it was that they knew the truth about too many things. Investigations were handled properly until the public had to be informed—it was why the media was so tightly controlled. Mark saw how the cover stories were spun. Even more gems reached Roger in the City Council building. She got to see the raw cases and facts.

There were reports from various parties—officers, their superiors, a medical examiner, a coroner, one or two forensic experts, and a detective. Under the pile of reports were glossy, color photographs of the scene. A few aerial shots of the facility along with labeled pictures of the interior. Mimi shook her head, forcing herself to remain calm. There had been bodies, unlike the report from a few days ago. No positive IDs on the bodies… The bodies were all prisoners, wearing some kind of orange uniform. No doctors or guards except for one, apparently the man hired to burn the place to the ground, caught in some crossfire.

"Coffee!" Cortland chirped.

Mimi extracted the coroner's shots and DNA information from the bodies and thrust it at Cortland as he put the coffee on her desk. "Run these against people that went missing ten years ago."

"But there was no DNA information on—"

"Use the mug shots. The computer can match facial features."

"On it!" Cortland was off like a shot.

God, the people they had found were so wasted—their heads shaved, like they had been in some kind of… concentration camp. Malnourished, lesions on their faces, broken bones inflicted before death…

She shook her head. Cortland should have those matches in less than half an hour. In the mean time, she wanted to find out where funding for this place came from, and who the hell was signing their checks.

--------------------

I figured out years ago that you can send a letter through the United States Postal Service for free. All you have to do is forgo the stamp and return address. Without a return address, the postal workers can't return the letter to sender, but, if the address is good, they can't put it in the dead letter office. Sure, the letter might arrive 'postage due', but the mail people just put it in the box, didn't bang on anyone's door looking for a couple of cents.

This plan is brilliant. I wish I had thought of it years ago. Paul's been giving me newspapers for almost eight years. Addresses appear in the newspaper. And this entire front page article and picture are a miracle. I had just muddled through the interview this morning, and received a couple of kicks for being uncooperative. Then Paul gave me the newspaper, probably as bait to act like a good little droid. I have a pen and some pencil stubs, along with a few scraps of paper, hidden in my cell, behind the toilet where no one looks.

I opened the newspaper once I got back to my cell. Front page—_Mayor's Office Announces a Code Yellow Curfew_. And who should be standing behind the podium in the picture?

Who indeed?

Roger Davis—ten years older, with long hair, but clean-shaven. There was no way I could have possibly missed him. The caption under the picture said that he was secretary to the mayor of New York City. I know that Roger doesn't live at the townhouse anymore. I have no way of knowing where he is now. But I do know the address for City Hall. God, I spent so much time in college writing letters to those morons. It's one of those addresses that I would pull out to intimidate people.

I had seen an outgoing mail slot once. I just have to pay attention when the guard brings me to Paul and back again. I'm good at causing a ruckus. I know I can create enough confusion to get the letter in the slot without anyone realizing that's what I've done. And if it doesn't work? I tried. But, Christ, it's so close now. Roger, City Hall… I can taste it.

I scramble across the stone floor of my cell, pulling out the stash of paper and writing utensils. I have two pieces of paper big enough for this exercise. I tap the pen against the floor. What to write? I know this prison is somewhere in New York, probably close to the city, since Paul runs around with copies of _the New York Sun_ and _New York_ _Liberty Star._ I know the latter is out of Brooklyn. Maybe Paul lives in Brooklyn and commutes out here.

In the end, I think I just want Roger to know that I'm still alive. I won't be alive much longer if anyone finds out I tried to write this letter, but… my days are numbered anyways. I wish that he could tell me if Angel is still alive, but that's another pipe dream.

Write the envelope first. That'll give me more time to think of the letter's contents.

_Roger Davis_, I carefully print. _Secretary to the Mayor_. I finish the address, adding an _Attn: Mayor's Office_ at the bottom, just for security.

That didn't take nearly enough time. Now the letter. Shit. What can I say to him that won't make him put his life in danger for me? Nothing.

_I'm alive._

_I'm in the psychological warfare prison._

_How are you? Oh, by the way, you wouldn't happen to know if Angel is alive?_

Stupid. All of it! Stupid drivel!

I need to say something useful in this letter. Like if he knows if Angel was one of the people at that Alkali Lake facility. I start with his name, and copy the date from the newspaper, despite the fact that I know this paper is a few days old.

_It's me—Collins._ I add _Thomas B. Collins_ in parentheses, not that he would have forgotten about me, but a full name looks like it will lend more credibility. The next few sentences are about being held in the psych prison with people trying to pick apart my mind. I mention there is a doctor named Paul, and list what information I can about the location. The two newspapers are all I have to go on, and anyone within the vicinity of New York City could get their hands on these.

I inquire about everyone, but the bottom line is Angel.

Folding the envelope paper is a little trickier, but between a couple drops of water and some creative folding, I am confident that it might survive a trip through the mail system. Might. It could be destroyed. Maybe they'll pick up the pieces and put it in a plastic bag.

I want the outside world so much. I want to be able to feel the sun, the rain, the wind… Paul's been quoting from the Bible a lot lately. I hate to break it to him, but I've always been agnostic. I've read the Koran, the Bible, the I Ching… all kinds of other spiritual literature. I know there's a higher power—after all, someone had to throw the switch—but I don't know what it is. Angel believes in an undefined God—embodying the duality of humanity, but also love. She always said that, with God, there is only love.

I guess I'm supposed to think I'm degenerate, a freak. Please. The love of my life is a man. And it doesn't bother me.

But that's what bothers them.

Shit. I wonder if the guard will take me to Paul again soon. There seems to be a rotation, but I'm not entirely sure what it is. Maybe he'll put me in a room with rats, like in _1984_. That would certainly break the monotony.

Operation Snail Mail is a go.

Damn—that's catchy. Maybe I should have become a novelist.

--------------------

"Have you got those names for me?" Mimi snapped as Cortland rushed into the office. She had spent the last half hour trying to cut through banking red tape—things were moving too slowly for her tastes. What the hell was he doing singing when he should have been working? Goddamn the help this fucking precinct hired!

"Yes," Cortland replied, handing her a sheaf of papers. "I did you one better and checked up on the possibility of a complete inmate list. None of the paper records survived, but Pam down in forensics has the hard-drives from their computers. She's going to see what she can get off them—logically and without a clean room."

Pam was another Patriot—computer genius. Cortland didn't need to know that nor did anyone else at the precinct, but Mimi knew that any names of interest—and Pam knew which names—would immediately be brought to her attention.

Mimi nodded sharply to Cortland as he took a chair in front of her desk, and picked a donut from the box. She needed to focus and try to detach from the situation. God, how could she when every waking moment was filled with dread that someone she knew would be on that list? She glanced at the top of the stack of papers. There was a synopsis of the findings. In others word, Cortland had compiled a quick list of the dead. Taking a deep breath, she read it.

Forty people. No one with the last names Collins or Schunard. The Johnson listed was a male, as was the Jefferson. "Only forty bodies?" Mimi asked. "That place had to have been able to hold hundreds."

"Thousands, actually," Cortland replied. "Twelve hundred cells, plus enough living quarters for doctors and guards…" He paused, considering. "I'd say there were about two prisoners per guard, and, at least, a hundred doctors."

"Jesus," she breathed. "We don't even have that at state prisons." She shook her head. "I want to know how places like that remain hidden."

Cortland shrugged. "There's a forensics team still sweeping the area. The forty initially found were all together in some kind of chamber." He paused. "I talked to Tony out there—he says they're thinking they'll find mass graves if the government doesn't pull the plug."

"We're still talking about eleven hundred people missing." She stood up. "I mean where are these five hundred guards and hundred doctors? That many people just don't go missing."

"Listen, Sarge, I know that you and Pam are really fired up about this case, but I really think that someone from the White House is going to—"

"Cortland, shut-up. Our job is to find as much as we can before that happens."

Mimi sank back down into her chair. This entire case was still confirming her worst fears. God, how many times had she, and Roger and Mark stayed awake all night, telling themselves that Angel and Collins, Maureen and Joanne, were dead? Too many to count. They wanted to know the truth and now… Christ! Angel? Trapped in one of these concentration camps for people that had done nothing wrong? Why did this fucking government hate them so much?

She stared at the papers, hoping that some insight would come. Pam would have the results of the hard-drives soon enough, and then they might know something else. In all the years she had known Pam, the woman had been able to recover all kinds of things from ruined machines. At least Pam knew this wasn't about the government, the Patriots… it was a personal vendetta. Their friends—their family—torn apart because different was bad. She could list all the reason why _not_ to rid the world of people like them, but no one would listen.

_Will someone care?_

God, she did care. Too much, according to some people.

The phone rang. Thank God for small favors.

Mimi grabbed the receiver, barking, "Davis!" into it.

"Mimi, it's Pam."

Her entire demeanor changed. Mimi actually wanted to hear what Pam had to say, unlike some of the flunkies around here. Jesus, had she become so incredibly narrow-minded about finding the others that she had forgotten to treat people like people? She hoped not. "Pam, what's going on? Any progress?"

There was a pause. "I can't recover anything logically off these hard-drives." That meant she couldn't repair them using an outside source. "I'm going to have to take them to the clean room."

"How long?"

"Hours, depending on how severe the damage is. Someone wanted to make sure that no one figured out what went on at this place."

"Call me when you've got something."

"Will do."

The call disconnected. Mimi replaced the phone in the cradle. What they needed was a solid hit on who had been running the facility. If they could get someone to tell them either a funding source or a network… she hoped that Pam got some results soon. In the mean time, she wanted more updates from the team at Alkali Lake.

"Who's in charge on site?" she asked Cortland.

"Charlie Gill was on site there when he called with the clearance—he's the one that sent me the case files. I went to school with him—"

"How often is he sending us updates?" Mimi interrupted.

"Every hour."

"Make it every half hour. I want to know the minute they find anything else—mass graves, intact files…" She trailed off. "Hell, we should probably just go out there." She paused. "Then again, we should probably give Gill until tomorrow morning before we micro-manage his investigation."

Cortland nodded in agreement, punching numbers into his cell phone. Mimi listened idly as he talked to Charlie Gill, requesting half hour updates and handing out the various phone numbers where he or Mimi could be reached.

They were so close… and it scared her to death.

--------------------

You're terrified because Angel is sick. You know that this isn't an ordinary illness, but this also isn't something that they gave her. Maybe her entire immune system has finally broken down, gotten too weak to deal with the constant viruses. You're amazed that hasn't happened to either of you years ago. This was almost too much assault on your bodies.

You lie on the floor of your cell, your ear next to the mouse hole. You can hear her, coughing. Every so often, a coughing fit turns into a dry heave. There is nothing in her system to come up. You've heard her each time her body rebelled. They'll have to do something—she's thrown up all the food they forced her to eat. She can't even keep water down.

Heart pounding in your ears, you reach through the mouse hole, as far as the stones will let you, hoping to give her some fleeting comfort. You remember when Collins was told to plan her funeral and she was saved from the grip of death. That moment might be soon… you don't want her to die. You can't imagine life here without her. You want her suffering to stop, but you also don't want to be alone. The opposing wants pull at you. Your head feels like its going to explode.

"Maureen?"

Her voice is soft. You almost can't hear her. You brush her fingers with your own, just to reassure her that you are still here and you still care. Shit, what if… what if she thought you didn't care and she stopped talking to you?

"Angel," you breathe, unable to think of something else.

"Think they'll kill me?" Her tone is raw, sardonic.

"No!" That was louder than you intended it to be. Angel can't die! "You can't!" you choke out, voice breaking over sobs. "I can't… I can't…" You haven't cried in a long time, and this flood feels like a refreshing rain, but brings pain to your throat and chest.

"Maureen, shhhh." Her voice is soft, comforting, like she's talking to a child. "We don't know what is going to happen. I don't want to leave you. But I'll always be with you."

It's strange, you think, that she's comforting you. You should be the one coaxing her through this, perhaps talking about what heaven might be like. When you're both well—as well as you can be in this place—you joke and wish for death, but when it comes near… you run away, hands in the air, shrieking. Angel would never do that. She's too calm, serene, sagacious…

"I'm sorry," you whisper.

"It's all right," Angel replies. "We've become an inseparable company now."

That language, that tone… it's so snobby and sophisticated that you laugh. You have nothing. You are nothing. And yet Angel continues to make jokes, be funny… She always was the one you and the others went to for a smile or comforting word.

"What would I do without you?" you ask.

"My gift is my song," Angel begins to warble. "And this one's for you. You can tell everybody, this is your song—" The lyrics break off into a coughing fit. The irony is that Angel actually can sing, you've heard her. She sang when she thought no one was listening. You know that she's trying to cheer you up, but your heart is breaking.

Angel quiets.

"Remember the Life Café?" you ask softly.

"Yeah," Angel replies, the words coming with difficulty.

"Roger used to get those disgusting burgers with onions and mushrooms on them… and he would tell Collins that he was just eating, not barbecuing a kitten."

"I remember." Her voice is distant. "Collins never ate meat."

"I never understood tofu—the stuff looks like curdled milk."

Angel laughs mournfully. You haven't had anything like that in years. The times at the Life Café seem like a hazy past, a dream. You can remember the sharp smell of onions and melted cheese as the waiter brought Roger's food. Spicy meatballs, milkshakes, ice cream, strawberry wine… You once bought Joanne a bottle of strawberry wine, because you wanted some.

Your food here is awful. In fact, that's almost a compliment. Thin gruel most of time, while the rest looks like something that went through the garbage disposal. Food… you wonder what brought on that strange thought. It's not like you're ever going to get something else.

"Maureen, honey," Angel rasps. "If I die, you have to go on."

"Angel, don't say things like that!"

"I want you to hang on. Someone will discover this place. You'll be free."

"No…"

Joanne used to tell you about prisoners that had been 'institutionalized.' They were so used to prison and that way of life, they couldn't cope with the outside world. You wonder if you and Angel are now like that, unable to cope with the outside world. You want that world with all your being—every iota in your body screams for that. You want to taste ice cream again, feel the gentle caress of a lover, walk between Angel and Mimi through Tompkin Square Park, hold hands… Would you be able to survive in the outside world?

"Roger and Mimi and Mark are still out there," she continues. "They'll find you."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Friendship is thicker than blood."

She breaks off into another coughing fit. Those hacks send chills down your spine. Angel won't be able to talk anymore. You want someone to cure her, like someone did years ago. You want her suffering to end. Maybe Collins died too, and they'll be together. She never says much about him, but you can hear that wistful longing in her voice.

"Angel… don't die."

--------------------

Mimi walked into their room, dropping her keys on the dresser. The Alkali Lake case was taking much longer than she had expected. How long did it take Pam to dismantle those hard-drives and get the date off them? How long did it take banks to comply with the police? And who the hell in the government was holding things up? What didn't they want someone to know?

She could hear Tommy and Jo in the kitchen, doing their homework. Mark's voice could be heard, probably helping them. He was smarter than he gave himself credit for—most people didn't drop out of Brown with a four point GPA. Mark just couldn't stand the conformity. He preferred to be free with his art and his life. Mimi smiled to herself—he was the exact opposite of Collins, who had come close to getting a Ph.D. In fact, if Collins hadn't been taken, he might have done that. Angel used to say she wanted to call him 'doctor.'

Collins and Angel… on the surface, on odd couple, but underneath, they were perfect for each other. The strange mix of education and free spirit that they had—Collins a college professor, Angel the graduate of a prestigious fashion school, while Collins would stand on street corners and randomly protest, and Angel would drum. They were… something she was incredibly jealous of, until Angel told her that she had to build her own relationship with Roger, not mimic theirs. She and Roger had to come together on ground that was comfortable for them.

"Mimi?"

Roger came into their room, still wearing his clothes from work. His cuffs were unbuttoned and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. His tie was loose and the first two buttons on his shirt were undone. She smiled inwardly. Then there was Roger… he dropped out of high school at sixteen to form a band, and barely had his GED. However, he had enough random college courses to hold his current job, as did she. Hell, she and Roger weren't that different. She had run away from home at sixteen to live in New York City, and didn't earn her GED until they joined the Patriots.

"Hey," she breathed. He came behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder. She leaned against him, taking comfort in the feel of his hot breath on her neck.

"Any progress?" he mumbled.

"Lots of dead-ends," she replied. "Someone didn't want anyone to know about this."

"That much is obvious." Roger fell silent, pressing a kiss to her neck. "I wonder how long before the lid is blown off this whole thing. They know it can't remain secret."

"Roger," she whispered urgently. "Are they alive?"

"I don't know."

They remained like that for a moment, finding comfort in each other's embrace. Roger had calmed down, grown up. So had she. They all had to. Perhaps, when they were living a bohemian life ten years ago, they needed to grow up, but this forced them to. They had to take on roles and responsibilities people twice their ages could never dream of. Collins once told them that clubbing and barhopping was stupid. Angel had smacked him and told him he was just an old wet towel. Collins had barely turned twenty-six. Angel had been twenty-three. Neither of them had been old.

_To hand-crafted beers made in local breweries._

She shifted in Roger's embrace, planting a kiss on his cheek. "You need to shave," she said in an easy, teasing tone. He only shaved every third or fourth day. She knew that—and wondered why the mayor's office hadn't started complaining. Maybe they did and Roger chose to ignore that.

"I know," he replied, absently rubbing a hand over his cheek.

"You know? Why don't you do something about it?"

"Because I don't feel like it."

There—the stubborn oaf that she had fallen in love with so long ago. At first, he was a challenge, something that would be hard to win. She didn't realize until he got mad on New Year's that she loved him. He was…

Roger pressed a tender kiss to her lips. Mimi hung on it, savoring the feel of his soft lips against hers. She could remember the raw passion between them during their first few weeks with the Patriots. They had lost so many people dear to them, that they clung to each other, that intimacy their only reminder of love.

"I love you," he murmured against her lips.

Mimi stepped back. While she never doubted his love, he rarely articulated those words. "What's wrong?" she asked.

He sighed, raking a hand through his hair. "I don't know what's coming." He let out another long breath. "For the first time, I don't know, and I just want you to know that, whatever happens, I'm glad we're together."

"You really think we're on the verge of starting a massive uprising?"

"I don't know."

A knock on the door, followed by, "Mimi? Roger?" Mark.

"What?" Roger asked, releasing her completely, and opening the door. Mark was holding a telegram, his hand raised to knock again. Mutely, he held the telegram out to her. Mimi grabbed it, glancing at the addressee. _Mark Cohen, Sergeant Mimi Davis_.

The contents said so much in so little. Charlie Gill had found something they needed to see at the Alkali Lake facility. He couldn't say what over the phone, so he sent this. He was also requesting a media representative and knew of her close friendship with Mark Cohen.

"What's going on?" Roger demanded, breaking the silent exchange.

Mimi pulled her cell phone from her pocket, hitting the speed dial number for Cortland. She handed Roger the telegram. The emotions on his face went from confused to concerned to pure joy at having something solid to go on.

"Cortland," she said when the younger officer picked up his cell phone. "Pack your bags. We're leaving for Alkali Lake at 0600 tomorrow morning!"

--------------------

She had always loved the night, even as a child. There was something magical about the ink black sky, studded with twinkling jewels. The night was hot—the heat had been awful lately, but no worse, she supposed, than her childhood home in California. A breeze attempted to blow tonight, the warm air dried the sweat on her skin, making her shiver. Mimi smiled into the night. She had always believed she truly came to life after dark. God, she hadn't been out to enjoy the night life in a decade, if there even was a night life left, what with all the curfews.

_Please take me out tonight!_

Bars, clubs, dance halls—it never seemed to matter that she worked in a strip club and, consequently saw clubs all the time. She still loved the atmosphere, so dark, smoky, filled with mystery and forgetting. People came to bars to forget. For just one night, a shy librarian could become the wild dancer, and a bad day could be drowned in booze.

Mimi balanced herself on the window sill, one foot pressed against the opposite side, and the other on the floor for support. Their complex had no fire escapes, not like the ones in her apartment, the one underneath Roger and Mark. God, she would sit on that fire escape for hours, watching people pass by, living their lives, oblivious of their watcher. Night… darkness, mystery, seduction… Her life was so typical now, boring. Years ago, sex for Roger and her had been about passion, pleasure. It turned into a desperate need to be loved, close. In a sense, it was still that. They wanted each other during times of need and turbulent emotions.

She could still seduce him—she knew that. Some of her lingerie from her stripping days had made it to their present life. When she still worked at the Cat Scratch Club, he came to see her sometimes, the passion smoldering in those blue eyes… he looked at her like she was dancing for him and only him. And she was still in good shape—being a cop was different from dancing, but kept the pounds from childbirth and age off. Perhaps she would seduce him tonight. They deserved to have fun in their sex life. Angel would be appalled to learn that sex, for them, wasn't fun.

The door to their room opened and closed.

Turning, she saw Roger taking off his shirt and peeling off his undershirt. They had put the kids to bed a while ago. That was something they did together. Roger was still attractive, despite the long hours of paperwork. Hell, he and Mark ran away from delivery trucks enough.

She stood up. He stopped moving, his eyes following her movements. The room was dark. She was silhouetted in the moonlight. She unbuttoned the shirt she had been wearing—one of Roger's old work shirts—and shrugged it off her shoulders. The black lingerie worked its magic. Roger's expression went from neutral to passionate in less than a second. She moved closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Make love to me," she whispered.

He didn't argue.

He never argued.

--------------------

I miss Collins so much that it hurts. Just remembering the times when he took care of me. Our relationship was very much give and take. We took care of each other when one of us was sick. I'm so ill, feverish… common colds, AIDS, none of that compares to this. I want him to be here, mopping my forehead and holding me, telling me that things will be all right.

Another coughing fit seizes me. Missing Collins isn't the only thing that hurts. These fits feel like my entire chest is going to explode. I know that this has got to be pneumonia or tuberculosis or… something. Christ, I have a degree in fashion design. I am a fashion designer and part-time drummer. Collins had a medical book and he looked up diseases in it. I couldn't get past the medical jargon. But I know that this is something affecting my lungs.

The doctors took me to the hospital wing. I don't understand why they can't just let me die. There have got to be new subjects coming in. They did something—it was painful, that's all I remember—that was supposed to relieve my lungs. Maybe I have lung cancer. I did smoke for almost three years. Nowhere near as much as Collins, but still. People get lung cancer from second-hand smoke. The doctors seemed to think I'll get better. I was hooked to an IV for some time.

Maybe they have cures for cancer, pneumonia and tuberculosis.

Fuck, they had a cure for AIDS.

Maureen tells me stories now. We can hear the guards making their rounds. Once the heavy footsteps have faded, she starts talking. The stories range in subject and humor, and I'm amazed that she remembers in such detail. Or maybe she can tell stories well. She always was our drama queen, making things better or worse than they actually were. I don't know how much of what she says is true, but I don't care. I'd rather live a beautiful lie…

Maybe my entire life before this was a lie. People gave me shit all the time. I lived in New York City, where I was supposed to find acceptance. I did, but I also found intense hatred of people who were different. I learned to defend myself, to let their negativity and harsh words roll off me. None of those idiots knew me. I felt more comfortable in heels and skirts than jeans and t-shirts. Everyone knew I felt off because of what I was wearing. I am… I'm…

_I'm more of a man than you'll ever be, and more of a woman than you'll ever get._

The duality of man.

I've circled back to that.

I glance to the mouse-hole, where I've hidden my writing. The penmanship looks so cramped and horrible, rather like the life I now live. I think about the first line. _I am Angel. Just Angel. That is all anyone ever needs to know._ It's true. The middle and last names were only ever added for show. In fact, I think Collins was the only one to ever use them. Angel to my friends and family, Schunard to my co-workers and professors…

"Angel, what if we were to escape?"

I take a ragged breath, the motion hurting my chest. Maureen… what is she talking about? How are we supposed to escape? "What?" I croak. It's been several days since I've been able to make my voice work properly. Properly… hell, I haven't been able to sound unlike a frog in years.

"I mean, if there was some way to get past the guards, what would we do?"

I don't know. My gut instinct is to reply, _find Collins_, but he's probably in a facility like ours. Shit, he could be in our facility and we wouldn't know it. The chances of Maureen and I finding Collins without outside assistance is laughable. "I would go back to New York," I reply carefully. "Get an apartment somewhere, with a flower box… someplace with lots of light."

_Live in my house, I'll be your shelter…_

I _did_ have an apartment. It was kind of crappy, third-floor walk-up, but the building was secure, more secure than, say, Mark and Roger's loft. My landlord fixed things, but made no apologies for old plumbing and electricity. There was sunlight, and flowers… Old furniture I reupholstered, murals, clothes, designs on every wall… that had been home.

And all this is assuming that the New York I knew and loved was still intact, even in a remote sense. The gritty, earthy feel… people shouting at each other, people loving each other… Bad beer in seedy night clubs, prostitutes walking the streets, business men running to a meeting… Organic coffee in the Life Café, the fresh smell of new fabric…

"Why are we still alive?" I ask Maureen. "Why didn't they kill us when they had the chance?"

"I don't know."

She doesn't know.

Are we supposed to repent?

One of the coughing fits seizes me. _Bring it on_, I think. _I apologize to no one for being myself. I was true to myself. How about the rest of you?_

_To be continued…_

--------------------

**Author's Note v. 1.2:** Let me make another disclaimer for myself, all I know about the police and their inner workings comes from watching television and the movies. If something is inaccurate or such, feel free to PM me about it. Again, thank you to all who have reviewed! I used to do reviewer responses at the end of each chapter, but since that has been outlawed, I try to respond via the reply link, although, more often than not, I get busy or preoccupied. PM or e-mail me—I do get back to those quickly. POVs have remained the same. And, for those of you that asked, Joanne and our dear friend, Benny, return next chapter. _Christmas is just plain weird. What other time of the year do we sit in front of a dead tree in the living room eating candy out of our socks?_


	4. A Trip

**Disclaimer: **Continuing to play in Jonathan Larson's sandbox and continuing to borrow toys from the other copyrighted kids.

**Author's Note:** Don't make someone an obsession when all they made you is a choice.

--------------------

**NIGHT** **FALLS**

By Etcetera Kit

**Chapter Three: A Trip**

Mark Cohen pressed his forehead to the window in the helicopter. Air travel was tightly controlled now, and commercial airfares had skyrocketed. People didn't travel much nowadays, with the curfews, and IDs, and passes, and papers… No, it was easier to stay home and watch the news, stare blankly into the lies that were told. No one believed the daily news, but no one could say that aloud. This chopper was a special transport, government-issued and approved. That didn't always protect someone, but it was good enough while they were in the air.

Fuck. He hated his life, hated what he had become. Years ago, he had worked for Buzzline to pay the rent, and other expenses that kept piling up. The real reason he had started to work for Buzzline? Angel's impending funeral. The moment Angel's health took a nosedive, Mark knew they had to have money. They couldn't rely on Benny for spotty financial assistance. The first advance he got he cashed, with the intent of handing it to Collins. That hadn't happened. Trent and the cure, then moving into Joanne's townhouse…

It had been Trent's idea for him to work at the television station. He had a few semesters of film school before he dropped out, combined with his corporate experience with Buzzline… well, that made him an ideal candidate for a station that lied and gossiped. He didn't actually film anymore. He ran the lights for the news shows, and helped with the sound. His camera… he had taken a photography class in high school and one of the first things their teacher said was that a good photojournalist goes nowhere without his camera. Well, that was gone. Just like Roger's guitar. Just like their lives! Just like…

Mark stopped that thought before it went anywhere. Maybe, if he knew they were dead, this investigation wouldn't seem so… hard. Gill couldn't repeat anything over the phone. Cortland was acting like this was just another case. And Mimi… Shit, he knew how hard this was for her. She and Angel had been best friends. What was their biggest fear? Finding one of their bodies? Yeah… that might be worse than learning they had died.

He shifted in his seat, leaning his head against the uncomfortable headrest. His eyes met Mimi's. She gave him a tight smile.

Why did loss still hurt ten years later?

Bohemia. What was it Trent had said? _You live. You dream._ He never wanted fame or recognition. He just wanted to make a difference. Want… Sure, he had wanted to make a difference, but that had never become a need, a burning, all-consuming desire change the world. He had seen his world changed—shattered, and no one apologized for that. No one said, _Oh, and by the way Mark, your friends are in an unmarked mass grave. Happy birthday._

Unity through conformity.

One slogan, and the America he had known was gone.

"Sergeant," their pilot called. "We're coming up on Alkali Lake."

"Good," Mimi replied idly. They were flying over a huge lake. The shores held the ruins of a large facility, some places still smoking from the fires. With a lake and dam that size… Fuck. Charlie Gill had found something underground—Mark would have bet a lot on it. Judging from the location of the facility, the basement could have extended into something under the lake. Even without the recent fire, he imagined that the place looked like an abandoned factory or something from above.

Hope. Why the fuck did that little word, and accompanying emotion, keep coming back to haunt the hell out of him? Ten years! A fucking decade, they had believed that the others were dead. Oh, there was a little flame that wanted them alive, but it wasn't practical. Now, that flame had been fanned into a bonfire, a great big fucking bonfire on the beach, complete with coolers and kegs. Jesus, he could really have gone for some Stoli.

Their chopper bumped to a stop on the makeshift landing field. A detective—Charlie Gill, Mark presumed—was standing by to meet them. He rushed forward the moment they hit the ground, opened the door and ushered them out.

"I'm Charlie Gill," he called over the noise. "Thanks for coming!"

"No problem," Mimi called back. "I'm Sergeant Davis." She motioned to Cortland. "Officer Cortland, and Mark Cohen," she ended, gesturing to him.

Gill gave them each a nod. They cleared the landing pad, the noise fading into the background as the pilot stopped the helicopter. Crime scene tape had been set up in various areas, while armed police officers stood guard at various locations.

"Give me a report," Mimi said, as they ducked under the tape, heading towards the blackened corpse of a building.

"Building is roughly the design of top security prison, each cell was designed to isolate the prisoners from each other and the outside world. Only thing in each one was a toilet." Gill motioned them to follow him to where several forensics were examining a destroyed lock. "Top floors were living quarters for staff and guards. Ground floor was offices, archives, things like that. But the floors below ground are where things get interesting."

"What about the fire?" Cortland asked.

"Arson—gasoline and a match. They started it in the archives room with plenty of paper to make sure the sucker burned."

"Someone had something to hide," Mark muttered.

"That is the understatement of the year," Gill responded. The ground floor of the building was a mess of rubble and ashes. They walked past the forensics and headed into the actual building. "We could determine that all the cells were underground," Gill continued. "That's common practice in state prisons nowadays."

The detective led them to a side hall, just off the main entryway. Ten or twelve steps down and—

"Holy shit-fuck!"

Mark had to second Cortland's outburst. Various mechanical devices lined the walls—the most basic of which would have made medieval torturers jealous. The others were much more complicated, and Mark wasn't sure he wanted to know what they did. For a fleeting moment, he was reminded of that old movie, _the Princess Bride_, where there was that death machine that sucked years from people's lives. Then it was straight back to Nazi concentration camps…

Gill looked exhausted. "This isn't the main entrance to the cells. That door is further down the main hall and clearly labeled. There are a series of tunnels underneath that connect the cells to this. You have to either go up or across to get to the cells from here."

This was a bad horror movie. Jesus…

"There's an entire lab down here," Gill explained. "The rooms can best be described as torture chambers, but there's also a mini-hospital facility. No gas chambers or anything that we might expect here. It's like they tortured these people or tested new drugs on them, then nursed them back to health only to start all over again."

Mark wanted to say Gill was being dramatic, but he had seen Mimi's papers. For a place this big, forty bodies was nothing. Perhaps they were the ones that couldn't be transported in a current condition. "Have you swept for mass graves?" Mimi asked, her face carefully neutral.

Gill nodded wearily. "Nothing." He paused. "I have a theory. The forty bodies we found were too ill or weak to be transported. The autopsies showed weak immune systems, strange viruses ravaging their bodies… people as good as dead anyways. Tony pulled up some aerial scans from last week. They show eighteen-wheelers leaving the area." The detective looked grim. "I think, whoever was here, left in a hurry and took the prisoners with them."

Bile rose in this throat. Mark turned on his heel and hurried from the facility. Outside, he located the nearest patch of grass and leaned over as his breakfast came spewing back up.

--------------------

_George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison_…

Breathe. In. Out. Just keep breathing. Concentrate on the next breath.

Oh sweet Jesus! That was another injection! You can hear the doctors talking, murmuring about how you've been non-responsive, in a coma. They talk about possible causes. Their voices are distant and sound like they're coming from a badly tuned radio. What the hell has been happening to you? The last thing you remember is falling asleep in your cell… after shivering violently and throwing up all food. You're on a cot with sheets, a pillow…

What the hell?

A nurse comes by and takes your blood pressure. How many injections had these people given you? There is a pinching sensation in your arm—an IV. What's the IV for? Not that any of the doctors or nurses will tell you what's going on, or ask you about symptoms…

_James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin van Buren_…

There was a truck. Lots of noise, packed in with other people. That had been strange. You hadn't seen a prisoner in a long time, and to suddenly be thrust into a truck full of them? Weird. No one said anything, just moved where they were told to and stared at the ground. A distant part of you thought about friends that would have started screaming, but you're too weak. It takes all your energy to concentrate on not falling over.

You never quite fit into their world—the Bohemian world the others' had. You went to Harvard, graduated law school, because a defense attorney, but jumped ship and joined the prosecutors, unable to stomach getting criminals off. What did you do, except try to make the world a better place? Try to put people behind bars that belonged there? Oh yeah, and, apparently, you being a lesbian put the final nail in your coffin.

"Take a deep breath."

Something metal and cold is put on your chest. You scream—that's the only sensible reaction in your mind. Why aren't you in your cell? Why do the doctors have you here? People throwing up and getting fevers is commonplace around here… wherever 'here' is anymore. After that little trip in the truck, you're not sure of anything.

"Escort Miss Jefferson back to her cell."

_William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James Polk, Zachary Taylor…_

An initial trip was made after you were first taken. That involved a bus, full of other people. You couldn't see or talk to anyone—the guards had black bags over your heads, and your legs were shackled to the floor of the bus. The trip seemed to take days, but you weren't sure. Just the whisper of cloth, the rumblings of the bus, the smell of diesel fuel… and darkness. The bag was removed when you finally got to your cell… the cell you occupied until now.

It's almost sad that you're entertained by the idea of a 'new' cell. This one is the same as the old one, perhaps even danker and smellier. You suspect the previous inmate died here, but you can't be sure of anything. So little happens… just pain. Only pain… red…

_Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce…_

A black bag is thrust over your head. It doesn't startle you like it once did. You know that being unable to know the way from one part of the facility to another is a facet of their plan. If you did get loose, you couldn't escape. You'd be trapped in the complex. The nurse unhooks the IV, and the doctor with the stethoscope is long gone. Someone yanks you up, dragging you by your hands.

You try to comply, but stumble. The guard painfully jars your arm. No one cares about a dislocated shoulder around here. You're just the test subject for various things.

_James Buchanan._

The guard growls and throws you over his shoulder. No doubt he thinks that will be faster. No doubt he doesn't wonder why he can feel every bone in your body.

_Abraham Lincoln._

Bumping, bouncing… like the bus…

_Andrew Johnson._

You hit the cold, stone floor full force. The door creaks and grates as it shuts. You don't see any of that, just try to clear the stars from your eyes from the fall. You're tired. You want to sleep. You wish you were still in that hospital wing with sheets and pillows.

At least you're alone—no needles or prodding.

_Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes._

Sleep…

--------------------

"Mark, are you all right?"

He turned, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Mimi was standing near him, a concerned expression over his face. She frowned, putting two and two together. Hell, she looked as surprised about his weak stomach as he did. So, he hadn't thrown up in a long time—since the last election—but all this, the idea of what they did to these people. Most of it was too horrific to even articulate into words. Bits of images was all he had. God, what he wouldn't have given to have his camera back to document this entire investigation!

"Yeah," he said shakily.

Her expression clearly said that she didn't believe him, but she let that drop. Gill and Cortland were leaving the facility and walking towards them. Mark forced a wan smile. "Hope I didn't puke on anything that was evidence."

Mimi snorted. "They've already combed the area, remember? No mass graves or anything of note on the grounds."

"Well, that's good news."

They both knew that this entire situation was anything but good. However, they had spent so many years pretending that this made no difference. How did their lives come to hiding and forgetting that they knew anything of value? Collins had wanted to start a revolution. Of course, he had been planning revolutions since Mark had known him, but… the idea wasn't too far off the mark anymore. Roger had muttered something about a massive uprising last night. The rocker didn't like the idea of them going to Alkali Lake without him, but he didn't say anything.

"Fed at two o'clock."

Mark snapped to attention, following Mimi's gaze. An FBI agent was just getting out of his car, complete with removable mini-siren on top. "Great," Mark groaned. If the FBI was getting involved, that meant that someone from the top wanted this case shut down and silence. The Federal Bureau of Investigation had become nothing more than a brute squad for powerful government officials. They covered things up, at any cost.

Gill and Cortland joined them. Cortland clapped Mark on the shoulder, eyeing the patch of grass. "Thought about doing that myself," he muttered.

"Shit, feds," Gill groaned.

"Just be calm," Mimi instructed. "Pam still has the hard-drives in the clean room. She'll back up all information she finds and won't turn it over. We'll still know something."

"Not if they demand everything," Gill retorted.

"What they don't know won't hurt them."

The FBI agent was wearing an immaculate, expensive grey suit. His sunglasses blocked a view of his eyes, which was odd, considering the day was fairly cloudy. He had chocolate-colored skin and looked a lot like… "Shit," he and Mimi muttered in unison.

"Is that bad?" Cortland asked, confused.

The FBI agent strode up to them, pulling out his badge. "I'm—"

"Benjamin Coffin, the third," Mark interrupted.

Benny—his ex-roommate in a former life—took off the sunglasses, a large, false smile in place. He tucked the glasses in his suit pocket. Mark hadn't seen Benny in close to ten years, only briefly recognizing that he had gotten a job with the FBI once the government delegations of duties shifted. Shit, the Greys had enough money to get Benny any job he wanted. Mark had thought that particular aspect of his life was over.

He thought wrong.

"Mark Cohen?" he asked, sounding genuinely surprised. Then his glance fell on Mimi. "Mimi Marquez?"

"Davis," she corrected, a stony glare in place.

The glare that made Roger cringe in a corner didn't faze Benny. "What are you doing here?" he asked smoothly, pocketing his badge.

"NYPD," Mimi replied. "We're here on an investigation."

No need to mention that Mark wasn't NYPD. "Ah, yes, the supposed New York man that was found murdered at the scene." He shook his head. "As for your investigation, that's over. The FBI is taking over. You can pack up and go home."

"What?" Mimi sounded outraged. "We just got assigned the case!"

Benny pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. "My orders."

Mimi grabbed the paper, sputtering as she read the contents. Cortland read over her shoulder, frowning and looking equally as angry. They were leading a proper investigation. The FBI would just shut down any progress and cover things up. Damn, everyone had called this back when they ventured into this thing! Roger, Mimi, Cortland… who hadn't said that the government was going to shut them down and cover this up?

"You can all clear out now," Benny said, snatching his orders from Mimi. "Your helo is waiting over there." He jerked his head to the makeshift landing pad.

"Who assigned you this case?" Mimi asked, her eyes flashing.

"What?" Benny didn't look like he cared overmuch.

"What bigwig assigned you? Who wanted the FBI to destroy our investigation?" Mimi closed the space between them, getting in his face. "What the hell has gone on that no one wants us to know about? Huh!" She poked his chest. "How much of a hand did you have in it!"

Benny stepped back, rubbing his chest. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"The hell you don't!"

Mark caught Mimi's arm, shaking his head minutely. The last thing they needed was for Mimi to kick the crap out of Benny—and lose her badge in the process. She had worked too hard and too long to get to where she was. She didn't need it cut out from underneath her. She let out a long breath, acknowledging that she needed to back down.

"Collins, Benny," Mark said softly.

"What did you say?" Benny snapped.

"Collins," Mark repeated. "He was your best friend. He's gone—disappeared ten years ago." He paused. "Do you just not care?"

"He's a convicted criminal. You'd do best to not bring up traitors to the nation."

"What nation?" the former filmmaker shot back. God, all the old resentment was bubbling to the surface, starting with the fact that Benny, asshole that he was, had wanted them to pay a year's worth of rent, breaking his word. Alphabet City, the industrial loft… it was like another lifetime, but old grudges die hard. Benny was just lucky that Roger wasn't here. The former rocker wouldn't have hesitated before rearranging Benny's limbs.

"This isn't a nation," Mark continued. "This is tyranny. Collins told the truth. He loved another man—and he was arrested for it."

Benny took a deep breath. "Cohen," he said in a dangerously soft voice. "You are treading on thin ice. I'm going to forget everything you just uttered." He jerked his head towards the helo. "All of you get the hell out of here. I'll expect all copies of reports to be destroyed by tomorrow morning."

With that, he turned on his heel and strode towards the forensics.

"Bastard," Cortland muttered, flipping off his retreating back.

"Hasn't changed," Mimi growled. "Still thinks about himself and saving his own neck."

Gill was watching, looking anxious. "He's going to tear apart my whole case!" The detective hurried after Benny, obviously being ignored. Mark shook his head, turning towards Mimi and Cortland. Both looked livid. After all, they had gone through hoops to get clearance and priority on this case, and Benny had just taken that away in one fell swoop.

"He's a coward," Mark agreed with Mimi.

The trio began walking towards their chopper. God, they hadn't been here half an hour, and Gill hadn't been able to expand on all that he found. Well, Pam still had the hard-drives. There was a chance that she would recover something.

"Can we take the rest of the day off and go to a bar?" Cortland asked.

"You have the stim-credits?" Mark replied.

"That beer tastes like piss," Mimi added. "Hell, it probably _is_ piss."

"Wouldn't surprise me."

They fell silent as they got into the chopper. There had been a time when Benny was "one of them" so to speak. He had lived with them in that industrial loft—him, Roger, Collins, Maureen and Benny. He and Roger were all that was left of that group. Collins and Maureen had been taken. Benny had joined the government to save his own ass, and had turned his back on friends. That _had_ been the first time Mark had seen him in a decade.

When had they danced on tables, starving and freezing in their rent-free loft? Like so much from that time, it seemed like a dream, another life.

_Adventure, tedium, no family, boring locations…_

He settled into his seat on the chopper. Mimi and Cortland were talking in hushed tones, probably trying to think of a way to keep their case. Mark had been there as a media representative in case something huge came up. They were trapped, like animals. All leads, all hope… shut down by ignorant idiots like Benny, who didn't care about former friends. God, Mark had hoped that playing the Collins card would work… the pair had been close until Benny married Allison and moved away, and, seemingly, up from them. And Benny had continued to respect Collins, simply because he had higher degrees.

Now…

"_Do we have any hope of finding them?"_

Not anymore.

--------------------

I haven't seen another prisoner in years. God, I'd almost forgotten that we were all processed together—stripped, put into some kind of decontaminating shower that hurt like hell, given our orange 'uniforms', had our heads and faces shaved, thrown into our cell… We had all been in one long line, like in those Holocaust movies I watched in school. I remember those school days, wondering why the teacher bothered. _That_ was never going to happen again. Ah, to be an ignorant youth once more. Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it, I suppose.

But Christ, another prisoner! Not a guard or a doctor… someone like me. This incredible feeling, like I'm not alone. It's so easy to pretend that the screams are pieces of forgotten nightmares or that I'm hearing things. I know there was some hubbub about people coming from another facility, and processing them here… Easy enough to put two and two together. These people must be from Alkali Lake… perhaps they didn't kill everyone there. Maybe Angel…

This prisoner isn't Angel. Despite being starved, beaten, infected, I'd always be able to recognize her. Those eyes… dark and mysterious, full of emotion… No, this isn't Angel. It's a woman, near as I can tell. Everyone starts to look alike. She's wearing the same burlap sack as me, and her head is shaved. Gaunt, starving… well, probably what all the rest of us look like.

The guard taking me to Paul stops, obviously upset.

"New guy," he says, a heavy Brooklyn accent in his words. "You're supposed to take 'em to the med facility through the tunnel, not upstairs. This is the psych ward."

The 'new guy' looks a little flustered. "Thanks, man. I'm used to the other place, where everyone went the same direction."

"Didn't have a psych ward, that's why."

Dear sweet Jesus, how can these people sit here and _gossip_ about these facilities when they hurt, kill, beat… traumatize people? This isn't a game nor is it a normal assignment. These guards will all be silenced, just like all those people from the Roswell case. I guess they'll either be paid off or have their family and friends threatened. Right. I'm pretty sure these idiots live here. Maybe they hold their families hostages so they'll work and keep quiet.

Definitely should have been a novelist.

The guards are exchanging notes about an upcoming ball game that they're attending. Huh. So _they_ get to go out and have fun, while I'm stuck here. Bastards. I focus on the other prisoner. Maybe I can chat with her for a few moments before they take us away. Yeah right—I'll just get beaten up by the guard and I don't really want another broken wrist, not after the med center. That place is incentive enough to stay away from provoking the guards.

She looks vaguely familiar, like someone I knew… holy fuck!

"Joanne?" I say softly, trying to keep the guards' attention off us.

She looks up, meets my eye. There's no mistake now. This is Maureen's lover, our neighborhood friendly lawyer, a good friend to all of us, the one that let us all stay at her townhouse when this insanity started. "Collins," she replies, no question in her tone.

I don't know what to say, at all. I couldn't have _imagined_ this situation.

Joanne reaches forward, gently touching my hand. She's so thin, scars over her face attesting to the diseases she's been a test subject for. But her touch is gentle, beautiful, something I haven't felt in a long time. Love shines in her eyes. I return the gesture, wanting her to know… I don't know what I want her to know. We're not alone. Perhaps that's all that matters.

"Separate!" one of the guards barks.

We're roughly yanked apart. I can see the farewell, the sorrow in Joanne's eyes. "You fucking bastards!" I scream, all that I've wanted to shout coming forward in one flood. I suddenly don't care, if I'm beaten or killed. "You took our lives away because you hate difference! What the hell did we ever do to you? Nothing!" I kick, struggle against the guard. "You gave up liberty, and now you're repeating history because of it! Why! Why!"

Shiny shoes are before me. Something jabs my neck. Instantly, I begin to feel woozy. Shit, someone just gave me a tranquilizer. Great—now I'm an animal. I sink to the ground, unable to keep my footing anymore.

"Him and the woman know each other, sir," I hear distantly.

"Interesting. Something we haven't thought of."

Then blackness surrounds me.

I wake up back in my cell. That's not unusual, expect that the little flap where they push in my food is propped open by something. Someone is watching me. What the fuck? I rub my temples, trying to dispel the rest of the drowsiness. I have a feeling that drowsy is the last thing I want to be right now. Or at all. Jesus, what is happening?

There's commotion outside my cell. Okay, lots of weird things go on here, but there is never, _never_ noise or shuffling outside in the halls. Things are quiet, eerie… My heart pounds uncomfortably in my chest. This is bad… I don't know why or how, but it's bad.

The door to my cell opens. The guard that had been escorting me somewhere appears, now sporting a black eye. Shit… they did something to him too? On instinct, I scramble back against the furthest wall in my cell. Rationally, I know that move is stupid, but rationality is gone. He glares at me for a moment before someone else enters… Paul?

"Thomas," he says in that oily, disgusting voice of his. "I wasn't aware that you were previous acquainted with Miss Jefferson."

"I'm not," I automatically lie.

"Your file says otherwise," he counters smoothly. He conjures up a manila folder and flips it open. He lifts a sheet of paper. "Here it is—your lover's will, co-signed by you and witnessed by Miss Jefferson." He shakes a head, a creepy smile wandering over his face. I really expect him to start cackling at any moment. "I'm amazed we haven't thought of this experiment before—we've just been trying to analyze your mind." He snaps his fingers.

Someone is pushed into my cell, stumbles and falls. She looks up—Joanne. I reach out, steadying her, wondering what this means. Her eyes meet mine. She doesn't know what this means anymore than I do.

Then, suddenly, between Paul's evil smile and Joanne's presence in my cell… I do know what this is all about. We were both committed for being homosexual. Paul wants to find out if we can be aroused by a member of the opposite sex… if we can get it up. He wants… he thinks… I know there's no use in explaining to him that I can be aroused by women, I just don't prefer that. I find men more sexually appealing than women… Christ…

"She is sterile," Paul says. "From all the experiments she's under gone. So there will be no consequences of this. You have until morning."

Paul and the guard disappear. The door shuts and locks with an ominous 'clank.'

Joanne cries, one hand covering her mouth. I crawl forward so I'm sitting next to her. Gently, I move her hand and wipe away her tears with my thumb. She's so thin, so wasted… For once, I know I'm in better shape, despite being starved. "Collins," she sobs.

I wrap an arm around her shoulders, letting her lean against me. "Shhh," I soothe. "At least we know each other—we're not strangers."

I don't add that my entire heart feels like someone plunged it into a bucket of icy water. Angel… Maureen… what about them? We don't know where they are, if they're alive, but I still feel like I'm cheating on Angel. Fuck, why? I know that Angel would understand, Angel would know this was out of my control… I feel sick.

"What if we didn't?" Joanne whispers.

"I don't know."

And still… there's the letter…

--------------------

Mimi's cell phone rang just as they got off the helicopter in New York. The landing pad was on top of the police building and the vehicle was just taking off. Mark adjusted his bag on his shoulder, wondering if he should go into work or just go home. Nothing had changed. His boss would probably want him to work the evening news shift, then the morning… less than five hours of sleep. Fantastic, and when he was already in a pissy mood? This didn't bode well.

"Pam, hang on," Mimi was saying. "Can you wait until I get to my office? Then I'll put you on speaker phone so Mark can hear this too?"

His heart leapt. Pam… she was still working and hadn't heard their order to destroy their investigative reports, and if she recovered something from the hard-drives.

Mimi gave him a meaningful look as they headed for the stairs from the roof. Cortland looked curious beyond belief, but also knew that he was about to get sent on a mindless mission. Mark almost felt sorry for him, but he was too young to have had friends taken in the original raids. Maybe what Mimi said about him was true, that the kid really would have come out of the closet if the circumstances had been different. They'd never know now.

The main floor of the building was buzzing with the usual life. Cigarette smoke, ringing phones, shuffling paper, people rushing around… like a long shot from an old movie. The two detectives would be holed up in their office, smoking and trying to figure out a case. With all the restrictions on food items, Mark was amazed that cigarettes were still readily available. Maybe that was the safest vice for people to enjoy. Hell, even things like birth control and medications were harder and harder to come by. Godly government… no birth control, just praise Jesus for all the babies that you had, never mind if you couldn't afford or support them…

He followed Mimi into her office.

"Cortland," she barked. "Go find our case files and put them in archives—then pull everything on the New York man. ID him. That much is still our case."

"On it," the officer replied, grabbing the case file and leaving the office. His furtive glance back at them was enough to suggest that he would be asking questions. Cortland reminded Mark a lot of himself at that age—looking too young and just a little too eager to please people. For Mark, that had lasted until he met Roger and Collins, dropped out of Brown and moved in with them. Now this was the part of the movie where the two detectives had some kind of breakthrough that let them solve the case. Starring as the two detectives—him and Mimi.

Mimi shut the door to her office, locking it behind her. The cacophony of the main room faded into a dull hum. She set her cell phone on the center of her desk, taking her normal seat. Mark sat down in one of the chairs in front of her desk, watching as she put the cell phone on speaker phone.

"Go ahead, Pam," she said. "You're clear."

"It's you and Mark, right?" Pam asked. Mark recognized her strained tones—she always sounded like she was close to a breakdown or hysterical laughter. Perhaps that was just her nature. She had been like that for a decade, since she had gone to the same Life Support meeting that they did.

"Yes, m'am," Mimi replied.

"I've managed to get the data off the hard-drives in the clean room," Pam said. Mark felt his heart leap. "They had all kinds of stuff—prisoner lists and records, e-mails were automatically backed up to the drives, facility information, employees—"

"Prisoners and e-mails," Mimi interrupted. That was a strategy one used when dealing with Pam. She was a genius, but, without prompting, would give the entire minute breakdown of something, not the short version. The short version was what they needed right now.

"There are four other facilities that I can see," Pam continued. "Portsmouth, Great Lakes, Death Valley and Sing-Sing." She paused. "I'll have to analyze the e-mails further to get a general location of each one. I think we can get those locations, though."

"Once we get their locations, we can hack into their systems better," Mark murmured. "They've got to be connected on a network."

"Probably a government network," Pam supplied.

"What about the prisoners?" Mimi asked.

"Of the eleven-hundred and eighty-five records, exactly forty are deceased, according to their files. Cause of death isn't listed on any of those. All of these prisoners were admitted between December 13, 1989 and February 25, 1990." That made sense—those were the dates when most of the round-ups had occurred, when people started disappearing. "There were no deaths before just a week ago—people are recorded as having serious injuries or illnesses, but they were always successfully treated and re-processed into a normal routine."

"Names."

Pam continued as if she hadn't heard Mimi's interruption. "All of these prisoners were reassigned to one of the other four facilities—that's how I have the names of each place. Locations aren't listed, that's where the e-mails come in." She paused. "In other words, the eleven-hundred and forty-five prisoners left were divided into four groups and placed at Portsmouth, Great Lakes, Death Valley or Sing-Sing."

"Wasn't there a prison here called Sing-Sing?" Mark asked.

Mimi nodded, one hand rubbing her forehead, while the other tapped a pen against the desk in impatience.

"Speaking of Sing-Sing," Pam said. "I've got a match on one of the four people that you guys wanted me to keep an eye out for."

"Who?" they said in unison.

"Joanne Jefferson, former lawyer, African-American female, thirty-eight years old—according to her file."

Mark met Mimi's gaze. That had to be the Joanne Jefferson that was their friend. Hell, she had been Mark's lawyer, barely out of law school, but fighting for the underdog. "That's her," he whispered, not trusting his voice any louder. His chest felt tight, like he was afraid to breath, like this all might be a dream. Joanne might not have been found…

"She's listed as having a pretty bad chest cold—treatment is ordered as soon as the transport is over." The tech woman paused again. "She's been moved to Sing-Sing."

"Have you backed all this up?"

"It's on my personal hard-drive now and I've e-mailed it to myself at the secure network at the complex. I'll spend some time later tonight analyzing the remaining data."

"Thanks Pam."

Mimi disconnected the call, sitting back in her chair. Mark met her gaze. Joanne was alive… How long had they told themselves that the others were dead? He had been hoping for so many years. He had kept up the search, even though he knew what would happen. Christ, how long had he continued to hit dead-ends, until now? And he couldn't stand up and start dancing. They had to figure out where Sing-Sing was, plan an extraction without getting themselves killed, then smuggle Joanne out of the country to Canada or, preferably, England.

_Have you ever doubted a kiss or two?_

_This is spooky—did you swoon when she walked through the door?_

_Every time, so be cautious._

Bonding over Maureen's tendency to flirt with everyone and everything, he and Joanne had quickly come to respect each other. She was his lawyer when he worked at Buzzline. He heard all the sob stories about Maureen's inability to commit. God… she had truly been one of his closest friends and now they had a chance of finding her. And there it was again, the idea of hope, coming back to them again and again.

There was a chance.

_I think we need an agent!_

_We?_

_That's selling out._

_But it's nice to dream._

Selling out… God, he had sold out, first to Buzzline, and now to fear. What could they have done? Would the government have come after them if Trent hadn't found them first? What could they have done differently? If they had been taken, they wouldn't be here to find the others and get them out. They all should have gone to Canada or England when this first started.

What if?

Push, pull.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the beginnings of a headache.

_To be continued…_


	5. A Search

**Disclaimer:** It's Jonathan Larson's sandbox. I just play here because it's fun. I also borrow toys from the other copyrighted kids.

--------------------

**NIGHT** **FALLS**

By Etcetera Kit

**Chapter Four: A Search**

Two a.m.—it was either really late or insanely early. Knowing Pam and her strange mind, he would probably be better off assuming it was early. Whatever the case, she had decided that he was going to help her go through the e-mails on the hard-drives, in order to pin down a location. Okay. He was used to weird people asking him to do weird things, but this took the cake. When he had suggested that she use Mark, since the former filmmaker was more technologically adept than he, Pam had just stared at him, her unblinking gaze magnified under her huge, coke-bottle glasses. She had looked like some kind of demented grasshopper. And Roger found it better not to argue with demented insects unless they became a danger to themselves or others.

He stifled a yawn. The kitchen seemed cold at night, almost uninviting. This wasn't the warmth and noise of the day. Food actually brought people together—he'd seen it. A decade ago, back in the townhouse, they could have been having a screaming match, and all it took to stop it was dinner on the table, whether that dinner be take-out or home cooked. It didn't matter. They all shut up and dug into their food. Home cooked was a joke. None of them could cook if the instructions didn't say, 'open can, heat in microwave.' Or 'open can, dump in a pot, heat on stove.' Spaghetti-o's had been Roger's food of choice for many years. What was it that Angel used to say? That he could burn boiling water. That was accurate.

The coffee maker finally stopped dribbling and issued some steam. Done! He turned the device off, and grabbed two mugs from a cabinet above the sink. It was like someone stocked these kitchens from Sears—all the dishes were white, utilitarian. He was fairly certain that he and Mark didn't own any dishes that matched. Joanne had an eight person set that her parents bought her, but it was liberally augmented with random mugs, bowls and plates. Stupid white dishes that all matched.

Pam drank her coffee black. Roger had gotten used to black coffee based on years and years of never being able to afford sugar and creamer.

"You going to help Pam?"

He turned to see Mimi standing just inside the entrance to the kitchen. She was wrapped in a faux-silk leopard-print bathrobe that had seen better days. In fact, Roger was fairly certain that was the bathrobe she used when she had been a stripper. Her hair was back in a ponytail. There was actually a warm breeze tonight, making the complex a little more bearable.

"Yeah," he replied.

"I still can't believe we've found Joanne."

"Me either."

Mark had called him moments after Pam gave them the news. Joanne was at a prison called Sing-Sing, probably closely related to the old state prison. The state prison hadn't been used since just after the round-ups. Prisoners were moved upstate to the prisons there.

"Are you going to be all right?" she asked softly.

The question was layered. Physically, he'd be all right. He was used to pulling all-nighters, helping someone do something around here, and being alert at the daily seven a.m. staff meetings that the mayor liked to have. Emotionally, mentally? Now he wasn't sure. Finding the locations of these other facilities meant coming that much closer to finding the others. What if they got this close, and realized that they couldn't get them out?

All right, that was a stupid assumption. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that every building has an emergency exit, or back door. No one let themselves get blocked into a building, because the only exit was the main one. A place like that had to have a back-up plan for being discovered. Of course, the government was secure in their fantasy that no one would revolt. Liberty for security…. Seemed like a fair trade on the surface, until one lived it.

"I don't know," he answered honestly.

She nodded. "I keep wondering if, maybe, our memories of them would be better." Mimi shook her head, dark eyes uncertain and worried. "What if we rescue them and what was done to them was too awful to overcome?"

"Yeah…"

He didn't have a response for that. No one did.

"We have to try."

They turned. Mark was coming out of his bedroom. Were any of them going to sleep while this madness was going on? Roger let out an inaudible breath. He had been against splitting up in the first place. The reasoning had been that a larger group would be harder to contend with. And they always ran around the house, pairing off in twos and threes. That would have made it more difficult for the brute squads to figure out if someone was homosexual. But no… Angel had wanted to see his family, knowing that it was just a matter of time. Joanne had thought that she and Maureen would be safer in Maine. No one had listened to him, until he was sitting in a living room, staring at Mimi and Mark, knowing they were the only ones left.

Who knows? Maybe they all would have been taken if they stayed together. Angel seemed to think that was the case, right before he and Collins went to Philadelphia. God…

"The records kept at those places are detailed," Mark said, stepping into the room. "Pam sent me part of Joanne's file from Alkali Lake. Once we get further in locating these people and nailing down their funding, we'll be able to get to the files."

Roger wished he had that kind of confidence. Mark had always been the more confident of them… wasn't the one that had stayed in the loft for six months going through withdrawal. A wry smile cracked his face. Mark had actually brought a psychology book home one night, and decided that Roger had developed minor agoraphobia. At least it wasn't what Collins did. Collins had a detailed medical book that he used to diagnose people's common colds.

"I don't know why Pam wants me," Roger commented.

"Because you're calm under duress."

Roger rolled his eyes at one of his oldest friends. Mark grinned. They both knew that Roger had thrown a fit and a half when he found out the others were taken. Perhaps Pam knew, on some level, that he needed to be involved in finding them.

Mimi came to his side, wrapping one arm around his waist. He sighed. Yes, he had a twisted imagination when it came to wondering what happened. Would the government have mutilated them beyond belief? Even mutilation on the smallest scale was just that. Torture, both mental and physical… experiments… There had always been a trend of claiming that products weren't tested on animals. He had a feeling that the pharmaceutical companies in this day and age didn't test thing on animals—they just tested them on locked up humans. People would have to pay—in money and silence—for that kind of thing… God… how did Joanne survive this long? How did any of them?

"You need this more than we do," Mimi whispered. "Collins was your best friend."

"Angel was yours."

"Roger…" she said slowly. "Yes, Angel and I were close, but Angel had decided her own fate, separate from what I wanted her to do. _I _couldn't change her mind."

"So did Collins."

"He would have come back to New York," Mark said. "And you know that. All you had to do was insist that he return."

"He wanted what Angel had been given."

"And that's why you let him go," Mark continued. "You knew that he loved Angel more than life itself… and you were best friends. That's why."

"You make it sound like I could have done something to save him."

"You always think you could have. Would you have chosen a half-life of living without Angel for him? Or would you have let him go, again?"

Roger and Mark stared at each other. The former rocker knew that Mark was right. Collins would have returned to New York. Maybe he would have been taken anyways, but… the anarchist had always done what he wanted… and he had wanted to be with Angel.

"We have a chance."

"I know. I know."

--------------------

I don't know what's going to happen now. Not that I have ever known what was going to happen to me, or to anyone here, but now… the last few hours have felt like a balm. Time is growing short. Before too much longer, a guard will appear and take Joanne away. I'll either be left here or taken to Paul for some kind of analysis. He likes to document all kinds of things, but he's extremely interested in physical sensations—pain, pleasure. There's got to be something _off_ about that guy. No one will listen to me. I don't count anymore.

Her head rests on my shoulder, one hand over my heart.

I never realized before now, that I had been starved for a simple touch. Guards dragged me places all the time. But they were cold, impersonal, like handling cargo or a wild animal. But with Joanne… we talked for hours. I don't remember much of the conversation, just that we talked about old times, before we were taken. The Life, her job, my students, her cases, my theories, Maureen, Angel… My memories had always seemed so vivid, but, with someone to share, they became full technicolor. I could almost smell the food at the Life, the vanilla perfume that Angel liked, new fabric, even stale beer and body odor at a bar…

And as for what Paul wanted…

Why am I so hesitant to call it what it is? Sex. We had sex. Let me amend that, we had unprotected sex because some doctor thinks Joanne is sterile. Fun. She was so thin—I could count her ribs, see her hip bones straining against her skin. Christ, I knew that she would bruise so easily. I tried to make it as painless as possible for her. She straddled me, I cupped her knees to keep them from grinding against the stone floor.

I'm not sure that helped with the bruising aspect. I think we gave these people the kind of show they wanted. No clothes, both of us came… although I thought Joanne wouldn't be able to. The only thing Paul could scream about was that I wasn't on top—but I didn't want to hurt her.

At least this _experiment_ was with a friend. Even if it was a friend that I hadn't seen in years.

"Collins…"

Her voice is weak. There's still a spot of blood on her lower lip, where she bit it during the beginning of the sex. I know that it hurt her more than she's willing to let on. Jesus, she's so thin, so ill… this was the exact last thing that she needed to be doing.

"What, honey?" I ask, adopting Angel's pet name for me. I don't know why it's so appropriate here. Maybe because it's sweet, but noncommittal. For me to use, at any rate. When Angel used it to me, I could feel so much, the depth and breadth of her love. With Joanne, it's just a cute pet name that I've introduced into the situation.

"I don't like this. I don't like the entire situation."

I don't like it either, but I keep that to myself.

"What if he was lying? What if there is a baby and they—"

"This entire government is pro-life," I countered. "The chances that they'll do something that will cause an abortion are slim."

"We don't fall under this government."

True.

I don't reply. Maybe I've read too many sci-fi books, but I did read a murder mystery novel once that had a doctor who put aborted fetuses into woman who couldn't have children, somehow. That part of the situation had been glossed. Hell, this could be an entire new enterprise for these people. Then the baby would be alive, just not born from the natural parents. I opt to go the 'cross that bridge when you come to it' route.

"We don't know anything yet," I say softly.

"I know, but…" She exhales slowly. "We have too much time to think."

"That's the point."

More than ever, I want to be with Angel in our shitty apartment. I want to take those steps two at a time, swinging myself around banisters and landings, just because I knew Angel was there. The apartment was messy, cozy and home. She would sit by the window and design, or paint in what qualified as a breakfast nook. Kisses, eating ramen noodle soup because that's all we could afford and consequently be able to cook… Life had been sweet, beautiful…

Not this cold hell.

"You miss Angel."

It's not a question. "Yeah," I breathe.

"What do you miss about her?"

Everything. "Her laugh," I begin. "Her smile, the way she made love, the fact that it was all right for her to wear mismatched shoes, but not me…" I trail off. Angel's kinky, beautiful… and she owns my heart forever.

We're quiet again.

Nothing about Maureen is volunteered.

--------------------

Roger gaped at the stack of papers—printed e-mails that Pam had recovered from the hard-drives. There had to be hundreds of pages there.

"You want me to go through all these tonight?"

"Yes." Pam didn't blink. This woman really thought that he could go through all this in a few hours. Did she miss the part where he barely passed the speed reading course he had to take to be employed by the mayor's office? Thank God his job didn't have much to do with reading things quickly. He wrote memos, did what the mayor told him to do, penned speeches…

"Highlight pertinent information about location," she instructed.

"I hate to say this, but shouldn't the location names be—"

"We don't know that," Pam interrupted. "It's probably a ruse."

Roger wanted to retort that it probably wasn't, but he kept that comment to himself. After all, the FBI was supposed to have taken the hard-drives and, by now, destroyed them. Pam was adept at fabricating reports that the clean room resulted in nothing. And she was good enough to cover her tracks. The FBI was dim enough to believe that the huge glassy and perpetually runny nose made her, well, not over-bright.

It was hard to believe that Benny—_Benny_—had been in charge of the FBI investigation. This was the man that padlocked their building, tried to coerce them into stopping a protest, screwed with his mind about Mimi and what was going on that he didn't know about… The former friend that demanded a year's worth of rent, because his father-in-law told him to. Apparently, he still had ties to the Greys, if nothing else. God, that yuppie scum was lucky that Roger hadn't been there. They had been friends… that was the frightening part. He, Collins, Mark and Benny, before Maureen moved in. The dirty laundry everywhere, soggy cereal, weak coffee, general chaos… He'd be in one corner writing a song, while Collins sat in the middle of a pile of books, working on his master's thesis. Mark filmed all of it and Benny would be studying for his graduate classes—law school, which he never finished.

He glanced at the paper on the top of the stack.

_This is the patient's file—what were your results in a different climate?_

Patient? That was rich. Roger high-lighted the last two words. That much meant that these places were in vastly different parts of the country, or, at least one was. The next dozen pages were the electronic form of someone's file—the name and personal information had been deleted. He blanched at the contents. This person was still alive? Jesus Christ, what kind of sick person did this to another human being?

_My husband and I will be at our summer home in Maine. Any chance that we'll be able to see you while we're there? We can take the boat out…_

He stopped reading. Maine—that was a positive location for one of these places.

This was going to take forever and then some. He cleared his throat. Pam gave him an annoyed look as she sorted through her own stack of paper. "Uh… Pam?" he ventured tentatively.

"What?" she asked, not looking up.

"What if we were to assume that the names gave us a location?"

"Didn't I already say—"

"Hear me out," he interrupted. "We've got four names—Sing-Sing, Portsmouth, Great Lakes and Death Valley."

"Yeah."

"Could we run on the assumption, for just a minute, that they are where the names indicate."

"But we've only got two."

Roger inwardly sighed. This was going to take more convincing that he probably had in him right now. "Death Valley, let's say Arizona," he started. "Probably in Death Valley." He paused. "Great Lakes sounds like it's near Alkali Lake, northern Michigan somewhere."

"And Sing-Sing and Portsmouth?"

"There was an old state prison called Sing-Sing in New York. It's not used anymore. What if the facility or the name were reused for this secret facility?"

Pam looked skeptical, but put her stack of paper on top of an already precautious stack of software boxes on the work station. Good… he wasn't sure how much more of reading the e-mails he could stomach. Mark would probably have said that all the doctors were deranged anyways—or some kind of weird sadists. But how did they find that many doctors willing to sacrifice all? Maybe there's some kind of conspiracy theory. Maybe all doctors really are that detached. Who bought into all the government propaganda… apparently the crew that ran these places.

Idly, he flipped to the next e-mail.

And promptly dropped it on the floor.

"What?" Pam asked again, this time startled and a little concerned.

He shook his head. No, no, no… they did not do _that_ to some poor woman.

The tech genius, and former AIDS victim, picked up the e-mail and scanned it, no emotion showing in her eyes. "That's not a new experiment," she said after a while. "Doctors have wondered for years, if aborted fetuses could be kept alive, could they be placed into a surrogate mother, someone who wanted the fetus." She shrugged. "It's kind of like the fertilized egg surrogate mother thing, but starting a later place in the development."

"Who did they get pregnant?"

She shrugged. "Look, don't make such a big deal out of it. If they figured out how to do this successfully, then the natural mother and the surrogate mother will both be fine, and the baby as well." Pam rolled her eyes. "God, sometimes you are such a _man_." She gave him a pointed look. "We're trying to find these locations, remember? And the US snail mail service knows all."

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, unable to argue with her logic. But what had really been bothering him… "Pam? What if they did that to Maureen or Joanne?"

"What? Aborted their baby and put it in some rich, hag trophy wife that could pay?" She shrugged again. "We're still working, but chances are good we'll be able to get into the facility records with time. There'd be information on the natural parents, as well as the surrogate ones."

"Now you're talking about kidnapping a baby?"

"I've kidnapped an endangered penguin before."

Dear God, Pam was off her rocker about a mile and a half. What kind of person compared endangered penguins to humans? Apparently Pam…

She had turned back to the computer, bringing up the satellite aerial maps. The pictures were updated every half hour, so they had an accurate picture. Pam also knew what an altered image looked like, so they could see where something was supposed to be. With places as big as these facilities, that wasn't too hard to miss.

Mind reeling, he tried to concentrate on what Pam was doing.

--------------------

I think I've officially gone crazy. Some guard took me to the med center for 'tests' today and I started laughing when they strapped me to a chair and started an IV. _Laughing!_ What kind of imbecile laughs when they're running a low-grade poison through his or her veins? Obviously me. I kept laughing until they took me back to my cell.

And then, sometime, the laughs turned into bitter sobs.

Maureen was out for testing then, because she didn't hear the howling. Moreover, she didn't immediately want to know what was wrong and demand I calm down long enough to talk to her. Maureen thinks like a stereotypical man in more ways than one. Problems need to be 'fixed.' That's why she wants to know what's wrong—she thinks she can fix it. She's also not as empathetic, wondering why someone is in pain. Still very egocentric. I love her dearly, but sometimes…

No. It's just better that she didn't hear me sobbing.

I feel like an infant, lying on my back and examining my dirt-caked toes. Amazing that I don't have gangrene or something yet. We're all taken through a shower thing once a week. I know it's an ordeal because the guards have to time it precisely. We're not supposed to see each other in the halls, so that makes showering a whole bunch people tough. The entire process stings. We have to strip, the scalding water comes on, changes to a disinfectant, then back to the water. I swear they douse us in rubbing alcohol once a week. Keeps the lice away. I think they give us a new orange smock every couple of months. Or maybe they wash the old ones.

I'm thinking a psychotic break would make life much more interesting.

"Angel?"

Okay, time to stop acting like the lunatic I've become. "Yeah?" I question, dropping my feet to the ground and ranger-crawling to the mouse hole. I've gone from thinking too much to… hell, what is this? Acting out some kind of game? Tom had a book about constructing situations. One father hid his child in an Italian concentration camp, and told the child that the entire situation was a game. He kept up that ruse and the child stayed alive. I wonder if I construct this situation in some kind of _Count of Monte Cristo_ thing… Maureen and I could dig a hole to freedom. Yeah right. Dig with what?

"Are you all right?"

Are we ever all right? I make a noncommittal noise, sounding almost like a frog. "I think _the Count of Monte Cristo_ is about a sandwich that learns to add."

Maureen is silent for a moment, but then she laughs. The noise sounds beautiful. We laugh so rarely here. God, for a moment, I silently praise whatever power sent me Tom—Tom and all his books. He raided the half-price bookstore on a weekly basis. I read more during those days than I had in my entire life. What book was is? _Peter Pan_. The first time a baby laughs, a fairy is born. I snort inwardly. Fairies. That's what people called _me_. Fairy, fag… I had someone called me a dyke once. I don't think they realized I was actually a man…

"Those sandwiches were actually kind of gross," Maureen says after her laughter dies down.

"Deep-fried and covered in sugar—sounds like breakfast."

"Ew! No! Cookies and milk—that was breakfast."

I snort. Somehow I'm not surprised that Maureen had cookies and milk for breakfast. In fact, it didn't overly shock me to learn that she ate whatever she wanted, didn't exercise regularly and still has—had—the body of a goddess. I'd have said it was just a roll of the dice, if I believed that God played dice. Which, I'm fairly certain, she doesn't.

Yup. I've already had the conversation with Maureen about how God is a woman.

"Will they ever let us out of here?" Maureen whispers.

"I don't know."

I can't imagine the government letting us out—to expose to the world what went on and what they did to us. Then again, if there's some kind of military coupe again or the government radically gets changed again… if it becomes more equal, we might be released. Hell, we might even be given classes to reacclimatize ourselves to the real world… We could stage a revolt. But when people without guns go up against people with guns… none of us would be alive to tell the tale.

"Will they kill us?"

"They've had a million chances to kill us," I spit. "But they've always nursed us back to health. It doesn't make any fucking sense!"

"Remember kickboxing?" Maureen asks.

"What…" I trail off. Of course I remember kickboxing. Good grief, I only took lessons throughout high school and intermittently through college. The purpose had been so that I learned to defend myself—and those kicks hurt when combined with heels. What does that…

I suddenly sit straight up, no longer laying on the floor. The primary purpose of the lessons I took was self-defense. They taught us what to do if someone attacked from the front, from behind, from the side… and how to twist out of various grips, including someone dragging you by your upper arm… which was what the guard always did to us.

"But what then?" I ask. "I can get out of his grip, but…"

"You'd have to get his gun. They only carry one gun each."

"But the reinforcements and… how would we get out?"

It's a given that I'm taking Maureen with me. One guard, if I have his gun, will probably open Maureen's cell, but…

"Angel, I can't go with you. I'd slow you down."

"But—"

"I've thought about it," she interrupts. "You'll have more of a chance by yourself. You'd need to get to the first floor—ground level."

"I'm not leaving without you."

"There's no other way!" She pauses. I can hear the angry intake of breath. "Fuck, Angel! Get out, find Collins, and get the fuck out of the country! Please!"

"Maureen—"

"No. Don't argue with me. Just do it."

--------------------

"This is going to take a while."

He could see that much for himself. The round about locations were great, but this was going to take a lot of time scanning for the exact locations. Sing-Sing would probably take less time and less deduction, but the other three were vague. Hell, the facilities could be disguised as huge meat factories or something, and they'd have to monitor the incoming and outgoing traffic to figure out if it was their facility or actually a meat factory.

Roger stifled a yawn. They had drained the coffee cups ages ago.

"Want some more coffee?"

Pam made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. Roger took that as a 'yes', picked up the mugs and headed upstairs for the kitchen. Pam lived in a different part of the complex from him, Mimi and Mark. The tech people were gathered near their lab—different from the forensics lab and mortuary that were below ground. The computer lab was on the first floor, comprised of a clean room and enough technology to blow NASA into orbit. He didn't know what half their stuff did. Mark had a sketchy idea. All he needed to know was the surveillance systems in the vans for stakeouts and missions. Hell, he could even troubleshoot those.

A single lamp in the living area was on. The computer and surrounding fans were off, meaning Mark must have gone to bed. He set the mugs on the kitchen counter, glancing over his shoulder. Mimi was curled on the couch, dozing. She held Angel's skirt to her chest, much in the same fashion that Jo held her teddy bear. His breath caught in his throat…

They had been two sets of friends in a sense, all those years ago. Sure, he knew of Mimi before that fateful Christmas Eve, but only as 'the girl downstairs' or 'the dancer from the Cat Scratch Club.' He didn't have a name, let alone much of a face to put with that description. Angel had once told him the story of how he and Mimi met. At a fashion show, or more, an audition for one. As an underling designer, Angel had been corralling the potential models into a line outside a building. The infamous story about the skinhead harassing her… the rest was history. Unfortunately, Mimi didn't get the job, but she and Angel became friends.

He, Collins and Mark had become an inseparable trio after that night in jail. Benny had been a friend of Collins'—apparently they had been undergrads together. Maureen was Mark's girlfriend… and the two groups merged on that Christmas Eve. Joanne came into the fray later, but became a part of the group nonetheless. And now…

He hated clinging to a memory of the past. He had fought so hard against the past during his withdrawal, when he first met Mimi… and those demons came back to haunt him when she was going through her own withdrawal. But that is what they had been doing for ten years—clinging to memories. Angel's skirt, Collins' jacket…

Roger padded into the living area and knelt by the couch. He gently brushed Mimi's hair out of her face, a lock that had escaped from her ponytail. "Mimi," he whispered.

She stirred, blinking. "What time is it?" she mumbled.

"Almost three," he replied.

She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Angel's skirt fell to her lap. "I was just thinking," she started softly. "Angel was always there for me. She was the best friend I ever had." Her voice wavered. "I thought I was going to lose her once… and then I actually did."

He nodded. "He had a full-time job, had to go to all kinds of events outside normal working hours, and still made time for us." He paused, a rueful smile on his face. "I think what really killed him was leaving the fashion company."

Mimi's eyes were distant, misty. "She loved working there." She met his gaze and forced a smile. "I guess I'm just afraid that, if we find them, the people we knew and loved will be gone."

"Midnight," he sang softly, purposely butchering the notes. "Turn your face to the moonlight!"

She laughed and playfully smacked his arm. "Your career as a Broadway singer is going down in flames," she stated.

"Never wanted to do that anyways," he shrugged.

"So how's the progress?"

"Roundabout locations—Pam's working on the aerial surveillance."

"Did you get thrown out or come up with an excuse to leave?"

"What do you think?"

Mimi shook her head. "You're a bad example for your children."

"Now they belong to me?"

He stood up, holding out his hands. She accepted his assistance as she got to her feet. He pressed a quick, but firm kiss to her lips. She responded. He gently rubbed her arm before heading into the kitchen and putting on another pot of coffee.

"Hopefully, I'll be able to come to bed soon."

They both had experience working with Pam. She could be narrow-minded in her task. Did she sleep? Roger was willing to be that she didn't.

Mimi nodded. "I need to get at least a few hours of sleep. Cortland and I are going to see what we can salvage of our case tomorrow morning."

He watched as she went down the hall and disappeared into their bedroom. A sigh came, uninvited, as he listened to the coffeemaker. Memories… He had never wanted to escape those memories. He just wished that the past ten years hadn't happened. Hell, part of him even wished that Trent hadn't come to them with the cure. They had been preparing for Angel's death… and they were served another kind of death instead. He wanted to be living in that old industrial loft, eating Captain Crunch, and having Collins pouring Stoli down people's throats before ten in the morning. He wanted to swing down the fire escape and be in Mimi's apartment. He wanted to go to the Life and harass the head waiter…

They were three strangers, trapped together in this web of lies and deceit.

They didn't know themselves anymore.

Shaking his head, he watched the brown liquid dribble into the coffee pot. Wishing for the past wasn't helpful. He had to accept things as they were now. Nothing could change what had happened—not the cure, not the townhouse… nothing.

A few minutes later, he headed back into the computer lab with two full mugs of coffee. Pam made no indication that she had heard him come back. Her attention was focused on the screens in front of her.

"There's an old nuclear testing facility in Death Valley," she said without preamble. "I think that might be our place—the government records say that it's been out of use for thirty years, but recent aerial shots show supply trucks entering and exiting." She paused. "We also got some incoming helos, and a few personal vehicles. Doesn't look abandoned to me."

"The others?"

"Two possibilities for Great Lakes," she said. "We've got an old plant on an island—looks kind of like Alcatraz. There's no company currently using the place." She paused. "And there's an abandoned meat packing plant on shore—a ferry connects them. Trucks have been going to the meat packing plant, and the ferry runs regular rounds. Again with the personal vehicles. It's one or the other, or that thing is the Great Lakes complex."

Roger blinked. A complex?

"In northern Wisconsin, if you care," she continued. "Portsmouth is in Maine—northern part, on the shore. The place looks new. There's no previous record of a factory or something big being there. The land was privately owned until the government bought it twelve years ago. The whole thing backs up to a cliff—anyone escaping would have to jump into the water or escape by the front route."

"And Sing-Sing?"

"In the same place as the old prison—underground. Otherwise, there's no reason for guards to be outside and supply trucks to be entering."

Damn. Pam was good.

"It's all surprisingly dim," she added.

--------------------

_James Garfield, Arthur Chester…_

You curl in your cell, as far away from the door as possible, trying to remember all the presidents. You had stress and anxiety problems in the latter part of high school and undergrad school. Your therapist had suggested coming up with a device—a mantra of sorts—to help you calm down, focus, and ward off the anxiety attacks. As a pre-law student, you decided that the litany of United States presidents would work well. Now…

_Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland…_

You feel like you've recited the list of presidents—Washington through Reagan—so many times, a least one thousand times a day. It's almost become the only thing that runs through your head. A doctor asks you a question and you reply with the president that you happen to be on. No one asks if you've cracked up, gone crazy. No one really cares. You know that the presidents keep you sane. A bunch of old, dead white men are keeping you from madness.

It's fate, really, that you and Collins saw each other in the hall. Since the truck and the trip from your old facility… he was like a gift from heaven. You were starting to believe that all the others were dead, that you'd die without seeing a single one of them. But no, Collins… the moment the guards realized you knew him, you knew that the situation was going downhill. They gave him some kind of tranquilizer. You were returned to your cell until he came to.

Those few hours shone like the sun. It was bright, warm… the person touching you genuinely cared about you. They spin lies. You know that you might be pregnant. The diseases tested on you were cardio-pulmonary, nothing that would affect your reproductive system… unless you've just been too starved for too long. You have an idea of what they could do if you are pregnant. It's no more or less frightening than anything else. Not that you'd be able to tell. They'd have to run tests.

_William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Wilson Woodrow…_

Huh. You've made it all the way to the 20s… not bad.

Collins talked about Angel for a long time. You know that he still loves him. He loves you like he loves all his friends, but Angel… he'd die for him. You don't know if you would have done the same for Maureen. In fact, you don't know if your relationship would have lasted. Collins and Angel would have been together forever, had disease and persecution not happened to them.

You wonder if Angel and Maureen are still alive.

_Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge…_

Shit. You momentarily forget who's after Coolidge.

_Hoover!_

_Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan!_

You finish the litany of presidents for now. You vaguely wonder who the president is now. The whole election thing seemed to have been lost in the pull before you were brought here. Reagan was already controlled by his cabinet. You don't know who took over or who was calling the shots when you were arrested. Martial law… no one knew who was in charge.

The door to your cell creaks open.

The shiny-shoed doctor from before enters. He carries a clipboard. You don't really care what he wants. Maybe he wants to get laid.

"Hello Joanne."

"Hi," you reply flatly.

_Washington, Adams, Jefferson…_

"I want to talk about your experience with Thomas."

For a moment, you wonder who Thomas is, but then it clicks. That must be Collins. You're sure that he's probably corrected this doctor before, but is ignored. Lovely.

"I'm not a psych prisoner."

"You are a lesbian, correct?"

You don't answer.

_Madison, Monroe, Adams._

"Joanne, this isn't hard. How was the experience?"

_Jackson, van Buren…_

"Joanne? Answer me. You don't want to go to the med center."

_Harrison, Tyler, Polk. _

"Joanne?"

"Zachary Taylor," you say, smiling at him.

--------------------

**Author's Note:** Hey all! Thanks for your continued support of this piece. I regret to say that I'm not sure when I'll be able to update this piece or even if I'll finish it. Writing these first few chapters has been really cathartic and I'm currently embroiled in an original fiction project. Good luck to all of you and thank you! I am really tickled to see any interest in this!


	6. A Find

**Disclaimer:** It's Jonathan Larson's sandbox and all the toys belong to some other copyrighted kids. I'm just here for the sandcastle contest.

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**NIGHT** **FALLS**

By Etcetera Kit

**Chapter Five: A Find**

"I hate the FBI," Cortland fumed, storming into Mimi's office and slamming the door behind him. The glass rattled ominously and the blinds swung wildly. "Bunch of puppets for the minister and guess where that's got them? Nothing more than a brute squad!"

Mimi glanced up mildly from her paperwork. Pam's search for the facility locations had gone well—their only problem now was finding out details, such as prisoner lists. And Pam couldn't use government sanctioned equipment or programs, since those would leave a trail back to her. No, what they needed was probable cause to go looking for the facilities. Then they could get around the government firewalls and other security measures to the prisoner records. An organization like the Patriots would push a mass prison break.

Despite it all, Mimi wasn't sure that a mass prison break was the answer right now. Yes, she wanted her friends to be safe. Joanne was—or at least, had been—alive. She wanted to break them out and get them to Canada or England. But a mass prison break? Not only would mass pandemonium occur, but when the government troops went up against unarmed and starved prisoners. Well, the phrase 'brutal massacre' didn't come close to her mental depictions of the horrific situation. Something else had to happen before the prison break would be effective. She didn't know what, but hoped that the situation might reveal itself.

"Sit down, shut-up and have a donut," Mimi snapped, motioning to the box on the corner of her desk.

"It's frustrating," Cortland groused. "They've shut down too many of our cases."

"I know," she replied as Cortland pulled a chair to her desk and fished a powered, jelly-filled donut out of the box. The sugar on and in all the donuts is fake, some kind of artificial something or other. Mimi stopped caring years ago, only being reminded of real sugar when Roger and Mark started filching things off delivery trucks.

After a few moments of silence, Cortland stood up. He stretched his arms over his head. "I'm going to get some coffee. Want some?"

"Sure."

"The house brew or—"

"You know I never drink the house brew. Get me the alternate—and don't put anything in it."

Cortland saluted smartly and headed out of the office.

Mimi took a deep breath, rubbing her eyes. Last night had been sleepless and she felt like the little sleep she did get had been facedown in sand. Roger came to be shortly before four, telling her that they had found the locations for the facilities, but hacking records and getting a person on the inside would be much more difficult. They'd worry about that in the morning, he'd said. The room was hot and sticky, and Roger only slept until six before he got up and got ready for work.

She opened her desk drawer and took out her copy of the FBI's jurisdiction. Benjamin Coffin the third seemed to be written every other line. She fought the urge to take a letter opener and stab the paper everywhere she saw his name. Christ, he had caused so many problems, and he still wasn't done being a little snitch, who ran to his father-in-law for everything.

Cortland wandered back in with the coffee. "Too bad about our jurisdiction being cut," he said as he handed her the non-house brew coffee. "I figured we could go to the IRS."

"The IRS?" Mimi perked up at that idea. Roger and Mark had a similar idea before Benny had screwed up everything.

"You know, they never delete anything. Huge facility like that—had to have supply records, tax records for their employees and the doctors, stuff like that."

"I do know." She tossed the copy of the paper at Cortland. "But we can't do anything unless we get someone to reverse this order."

Cortland made a face and took the paper, studying the words.

Mimi leaned back in her chair. The days were long gone when they could just write letters and protest in the streets. Collins would have been all for picketing. He would protest anything—all a body had to do was give him a substantial reason. She smiled inwardly, remembering one of the fashion shows early on in Angel and Collins' relationship. Angel had a piece in the show, and Mimi came along for the open bar. Angel had made Collins promise not to raise a fuss, especially since she didn't want to get fired. They needed the money.

That protest over caviar and tuna ended up inspiring a summer fashion line.

The warm feeling that accompanied those memories faded. They had to keep all this information from the Patriots. If a mass prison break occurred… well, what normally happened when people without guns went against people with guns would happen.

"Hey, did you read the legal jargon at the beginning of this?"

"No." Mimi sat forward, pinning Cortland with a glare.

"I'm not sure, but it doesn't look like our authority was ever cut."

"What?"

Mimi snatched the paper from Cortland and skimmed the opening paragraphs. The normal 'cease and desist' crap was not there. The paper just asked them to hand over the case to the FBI, but didn't require them to do so.

She looked up at Cortland, grinning. "Today might be our lucky day." She waved the piece of paper at her partner. "This isn't a cease and desist form. This just allows the FBI to get involved with the case, but doesn't mean we have to stop."

Trust Benny to lie about the actual contents of the forms. She'd been too upset to peruse the paperwork well, had just fumed about giving up their case. And now… hope was still there. The others weren't amongst the deceased at Alkali Lake. The others could easily be at one of the other facilities. Now to find information that these places existed. Pam could use that information to her advantage. If she had records or names… yes! This was good.

_Hang on. We're coming._

"Do we have a contact in the IRS?"

Cortland looked thoughtful for a moment. "Yes," he answered slowly. "Ali. She doesn't normally work with the police, but she'll get us what we need."

"Get her number! And get us a chopper to DC."

Cortland nodded and was out of the office like a shot.

This was so close now. For ten years, they had waited and wondered, knowing that hope was futile. Their friends were dead. Hope was such an insidious emotion. So many times in the past she had given up hope. Hope of ever being something more than stripper, hope of living much longer with AIDS, hope for finding Angel and the others… The people that thought the worst usually came out the best. When the worst happened, they expected such and weren't crushed. But still…

_Without you, the seeds root…_

The little seed of hope had taken root. Nothing was stopping that now.

Roger sang the kids to sleep every night. But sometimes, especially during elections, he had to work late, doing campaign parties and debates, not getting home until well after midnight. On those nights, she told them stories. Her children listened intently as she told them about Angel and Collins, Maureen and Joanne. They asked what protests were, what anarchy meant, what a drag queen was… they were learning that life had been diverse and beautiful. She hoped that they could get them to England, where this terror hadn't spread. Hell, she'd send them to China if that meant escaping the lunacy that this country had fallen to.

Cortland ran in and slapped a post-it note on her desk. "Got the chopper booked for tomorrow morning," he added.

"Good." Mimi picked up her phone, dialing the number. She just hoped that Ali could get them what they needed by tomorrow morning.

------------------

You're not sure what dying feels like anymore. So often, in the beginning, you thought that you were dying, would see a brilliant light, only to be dragged back at the last moment. Perhaps you've been slowly dying for years. But Angel… she has a chance. You wonder why you didn't think of the plan years earlier. This is a fantastic plan. If only you can convince Angel to go through with it…

You've been talking with her, trying to convince her that she needs to try something. You're so weak that you can barely move. You wonder if you're finished. Perhaps this last virus will be the stone that breaks the camel's back. A tingle of pride goes through you. Joanne would have been proud that you used that phrase. You never really were interested in her world—high society, Ivy League, law… but you used to read her papers and help her with cases to show support.

You snort. Everything had been about showing support back then. You've been alone for so long, with no one but Angel for company… did you dream those years with Joanne? Did you dream the protests and the Key Club and Buzzline? Those times seem like a dream within a dream. This prison is your only reality now.

Harsh coughs rack your body. They hurt, like your lungs are being ripped open from the inside out. Angel had recovered from the last virus. Weakness, apathy, filth… those are constants, perhaps the only constants that this world knows.

"Angel?"

"Hmm?" Her voice is soft, hoarse. She seems to be teetering on the brink of insanity. You don't want her to go insane. You _need_ her. And if she escapes, well, that would be a good reason to let go of your tenacious hold on life.

"Have you thought about it?"

There is no need to state was "it" is. Angel knows. You know. That is all that matters. Angel sighs deeply. You wonder how she can do so. Many of the viruses are cardio-pulmonary and most people cannot breathe without pain. You've heard the other cries, the hacking coughs, the gasping breaths…

"Yes." Her voice is clear, sane. A part of you feels relieved. "But I'm not sure that I'm strong enough. The kicks won't have much effect."

"What about twisting out of the grip and running?"

"I'm just not sure, Maureen." Another deep breath. "Where would I go if I did escape the detail that's taking me to the med center? The place has to have all kinds of security. I can't bypass that."

"But you're leaving—not coming in. It's got to be like an airport."

Airports… those had been one of the first signs of change. People were practically strip-searched before they were allowed into the terminal, let alone on a plane. Soon enough, though, all air traffic was grounded because of the outbreaks. All those outbreaks had been at schools. You remember the news footage, shots of children being carried out on stretchers, dying. The boils on their skin, their flushed faces, the blood, the screams… all a prelude to now, pain and stone walls.

"I'll stand out like a sore thumb too," Angel continues. "Give me more time. I have find out where I can run to, where I can find clothes that will marginally pass me off as a guard or doctor."

Angel had always been the mediator, the peace-maker. You are used to plunging into action, without a thought for the consequences. But the consequences this time… this can't be in vain. You know that Angel has to plan for more than you initially thought. If she wants to get out of here… you're not even sure where here is. Getting away from the guard, getting a gun, perhaps using the gun… Years ago, you wouldn't have been sure if you could shoot someone.

Now… now you could. You wouldn't even blink as you pumped a bullet between the eyes of one of the guards or into the head of the doctor in the med center… you still feel, but guilt, justice, a value for a human life… those are gone. Instead, you have hard, cold revenge. You want to hurt the people who hurt you and Angel.

But you know you can't, even if given the chance.

"Angel…"

"Maureen, honey, I'm trying. Believe me." Her voice sounds tired.

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right." Again, Angel is always the one comforting you. You never take a turn. You've never known how to comfort people. If problems couldn't be fixed, then you… She reaches through the mouse-hole and you brush her fingers, taking comfort from that small contact. Feeling her skin reminds you that you are not alone. Angel is real, here, and not a disembodied voice. Odd companions and odd warriors… no one would have ever imagined you two would end up comrades.

"I miss the sunlight," she says suddenly. She starts again, her voice more vehement. "Maureen, I'll try this, just for the sunlight. I want to see the sun again before I die."

A strange tightening fills your chest. You want her to do this. You want one of you to get out and tell your story to the world. But still… you're losing the only real thing in your life. Opportunities and choices… you want Angel to fly again.

------------------

_Opportunities and choices…_

Mimi crossed her arms over her chest, watching Cortland pace the sidewalk near the side entrance to the White House. The real White House, the actual building, was nothing more than storage. The symbol was still used and seen in the media, but the real "president" was hidden in an underground military bunker, making outside assassination attempts a moot point. The only way to truly overthrow this government was a military coup and that plan had a snowball's chance on the sunny side of Mercury.

Ali had said she'd try to pull their files—and had paused when Mimi told her not even to bother with the electronic files, just go straight to the paper back-ups. They had an eight a.m. chopper and would be in DC by noon. They needed those files then. Ali had promised to try her best, but made no guarantees. Mimi smiled wistfully, remembering the Life Support meetings.

Pam had been there. She had received the cure as well, and was their computer gal, driving Roger to drink. Ali had been another one, but had traveled to the DC area anyways, to be near her family after getting the cure. And Sue… the final female from the group. She had finished med school after getting the cure and worked for the Patriots, in their medical facility. But Paul, Gordon, Steve… she had no idea what happened to them.

Life Support had always been… not fun, but gave her a sense of community. These were other people living with—not dying from—disease. They came from all walks of life and had acquired AIDS in a myriad of different ways. Sharing needles, unprotected sex, blood transfusions… Sharing needles, that had been her story. Clean for so many years, and there was no way to get heroin now, but sometimes… sometimes she just wanted one more hit. Sue had said that addictions never really go away, just stay in remission.

"Mimi?"

She turned towards the entrance. Ali had just pushed the door open. She looked much the same as Mimi remembered her, just older and more careworn. "Ali," she replied warmly. "This is Officer Cortland," she added, gesturing to her partner.

Cortland stopped pacing and shook Ali's hand. "M'am," he replied politely.

Ali smiled, that smile full of tension. "Let's get going," she said softly. "I found what you wanted… what did you guys need detention facility information for?"

"A case we're working on," Cortland supplied.

They followed Ali into the building. The halls were dimly lit, the only light the noon sun coming through the high windows. The place was bare of all the items that would have attracted tourists only a decade ago. Mimi had never been interested in doing tourist things. She had grown up just outside of LA, in, for all intents and purposes, a slum. Moving to New York hadn't improved her living situation, but at least she had been away from her family and the squalling babies and… the _stereotypes_.

Ali's office was just off the back corridor. For a second, Mimi thought they had made a mistake and walked into the janitor's closet. The room was claustrophobic, with no windows. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were filled with books and the desk was covered high in paper. Two folding chairs had been jammed in front of the desk.

Cortland let out a low whistle. "And we thought our office was crappy."

She had to second his thoughts. Their offices were a little haphazard and placed a little too close together, but at least they had windows and some elbow room. This was… crazy. And Ali hadn't gone nuts working here yet? Did she see another human being all day?

For a moment, she wondered if Ali remembered Angel and Collins. But that was ridiculous. If she remembered Mimi, then she certainly remembered the two that were the pillars of that group, the two that went to meetings without fail. What would she do if this search turned out to be a dead end? What if the others really were dead? Roger had perused the e-mails and had come to the conclusion that the inmates of these facilities were infected, tortured and nursed back to health, only for the cycle to begin again.

Ali slipped behind her desk and motioned to several large folders on one corner. "Those are the files," she said. "You can only view them here—you can't make copies or take them with you, so take notes on what you need."

"Thanks," Mimi said sincerely. "Mind if we sit in here?"

"No," the other woman replied. "It's why I put the chairs in here."

Cortland took one folder, and handed another to Mimi. The files were huge. She flipped open her folder. Receipts, forms, subsidies… The black letters swam before her eyes. These folders were in no order. How were they supposed to go through them and still get back in time for their four o'clock chopper? Christ… she felt the beginning of a headache at the base of her skull.

"This is a disaster," Cortland commented.

Ali shrugged, as if to say she hadn't been the one that filed them.

"Was there anything odd about these?" Cortland continued. Ever the cop—look for a direct way to get the information, then go the long route.

"There were no electronic files," Ali said slowly.

"Well, we knew there wouldn't be," Mimi replied.

"There's something else." Ali paused, as if searching for the words. Her eyes looked clouded and far away. "The places never existed."

"What?" Mimi and Cortland asked at the same time.

"If files get deleted, we can see that on the system," Ali clarified. "That usually happens for records more than ten years old. We don't have the space to store more than a decade's worth of files." She paused. "But an electronic file had never been made for those detention facilities. I thought it was odd, you know, because of the size of the places."

"And?" Mimi prompted.

"There's some awful strange supplies going into detention facilities."

"Huh?" Cortland rifled through his folder.

"Just look at the orders and receipts," Ali said.

Mimi looked down at the papers in her lap, seeing and not seeing. She had heard enough of the e-mails from Roger. And she had seen the burned out facility at Alkali Lake. She wasn't sure that she wanted to know what else went on. God… Angel… if all this was true, was it heartless to hope that her best friend had died before seeing any of it? Angel had faced death once—AIDS wasn't a pleasant way to go, but it sure beat the alternatives in these facilities.

_Without you…_

The world didn't stop because she had lost her best friend. The world didn't stop for any of them, so small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps that is why she'd never been happy with the Patriots. They wanted a revolution. She just wanted her friends back.

-----------------

It's time. For so long, I've been afraid, kept in my shell, unable to protest or do anything. Now, I'm going to do something about this. I've never been afraid of death. I came to terms with my mortality the moment I learned I had HIV. Life is meant to be enjoyed and, if my life had just been cut short, damn if I wasn't going to enjoy it to the fullest.

Ten months. I had all I ever wanted for ten months.

I had sunlight, I had Tom, and I had freedom.

Maureen wants me to make a run for it—she really does think that I'll escape. I know that I won't. I won't make it past the detail of guards at the end of the hall.

Today is the day that I really will die.

Strangely, I'm not bothered by that fact. Sighing, I sit up and reach into the mouse-hole, extracting the paper. I read what I have written. Nothing unusual graces the page. My story is nothing out of the ordinary.

_I am Angel. Just Angel. That is all anyone ever needs to know._

Briefly, my mind goes to my childhood, to the gritty streets of central Philadelphia. My mother was a waitress at a local café. My father was a janitor at Temple University. They just wanted their children to do better than them. Fashion design? That took them some time to get used to, but once the full scholarship came, they accepted it with open arms. They didn't care that I was gay, or a drag queen. They saw I was happy and that was all that mattered. And AIDS… they were devastated when I told them, but didn't judge me because of the disease.

Judgment… I guess this whole idea of escaping goes down to the fact that I am tired of being judged. I'm tired of the labels, of someone else telling me what I should be. I am Angel. And I don't want to live by their standards.

I wish I knew what happened to Collins. They got me while I was shopping. I wouldn't tell them where Collins was. He's been taken too, I know that. He couldn't have escaped the initial purges. I hope he protested. I hope he broke a limb or a nose. I hope…

I hate hope. It all ends today.

"Maureen?" I roll up the paper and slip it back into the mouse-hole. I reach through the tiny space, just brushing Maureen's fingers over the paper and the stub of a pencil.

"Angel?"

"I'm going today."

She sighs, the breath a lament and love. "Good."

"No day but today," I whisper.

"No day but today," she echoes, sadly.

I know that I'm leaving her. That hurts. That is almost enough incentive to stay here. Almost. Not enough, never enough. I'm doing what I should have done years ago.

Minutes, hours, later, a guard opens my cell. I am ready for him. The kick to the groin is swift and silent, before he even knew what was happening. I scramble around him, and am out the door. I imagine him, doubled-over, because his voice screams, "You fucking bastard!"

The guards at the end of the hall are alerted to the noise. Quickly, I glance both directions. The cells are in a square shape, and no one is coming from the other direction. I run, my bare feet slapping against the cool stone floor. There is a rushing in my ears, so I don't hear the cries of the other prisoners, the moans, the coughs…

I collide with a solid body.

It takes me a moment to comprehend that I've just run into another guard, coming from another direction. He grabs my arm. I twist out before he can get a solid grip on me, and my elbow lands in his solar plexus. He grunts as the wind is knocked out of him. As if all the years hadn't passed, the kickboxing flows back to me. I remember the moves, the fluid actions.

Another guard tries to grab me from behind. With more force than I knew I possessed anymore, I land my foot on his instep, distracting him enough that I can use the heel of my hand to break his nose.

"What the—"

A third guard. I'm almost surrounded. Almost, not quite. There's still a chance. I dodge the new arrival's blows and scamper down the hall.

"Got'cha!"

It's the fourth and final guard from the cell. Shit, I forgot about him. It's over now—I know when I'm defeated. The guards cluster around me, like I can overcome all four of them at once. The guard from the cell has a deadly look in his eyes. One clutches his bleeding nose. Good to know that I did some damage.

"I'll give you exactly what you deserve!"

One guard backhands me across the face. The force causes me to fall to the ground. "You think you can run?" another asks in a taunting voice. "We'll fix it so you can't walk again!"

A heavy night-stick appears and—

I don't feel the bone breaking, just hear the crack echo through the stone wall and see the bone poking through my skin. Surreal… I know the pain will catch up with me, but, for now, I can't feel, only hear the sound through my head, rattling my teeth.

"What are you doing?"

White coat… a doctor.

"We have to keep this one alive! He's one of the key specimens in the current experiment!"

Hands lift me onto a stretcher. Vaguely, I am aware that they are taking me to the med center, maybe to fix the broken leg, maybe the torture me further. I don't know. I don't care. All I know is that I have failed. A huge, crushing disappointment. Why did that doctor have to intervene? The guards would have beaten me to death. I know that. No one takes kindly to a broken nose or a kick in the balls.

_Times are shitty, but I pretty sure they can't get much worse._

A laugh bubbles up. Not much worse? Things have gone so far downhill…

There is a slight pinch. As I'm transferred from the stretcher to a hospital bed, the pain comes pouring back to me. Red blossoms before my vision, sharp, intense… a good pain. Not the aches and pains from viruses, but actual, honest-to-God pain. For the first time in so many years, I feel something acutely, not distantly or emotionally, but literally…

I scream. It's the only thing I can think to do. I wasn't even aware that my vocal chords would cooperate that much.

The world before me turns woozy and black dances around my vision.

Just before I succumb to the darkness, I think, _I am Angel. Hear me roar._

-----------------

Mimi stared at the shorthand notes she had taken over the files. Roger and Mark would be able to make more sense of the companies and the shipping documents. But she had what she needed—addresses, network providers, suppliers… all the things that would enable Pam to nail these people to the wall with their own system.

She glanced out the window. Another hour or so before they landed in New York.

So far, none of the Patriots had asked them to officially be involved in finding out more about the facilities. That surprised her. Pam helped them out frequently, but no one higher up in the organization had set people on finding this. Or they might have. She rarely knew about the assignments handed to anyone else. Ignorance was the best way to run a group like the Patriots. If someone was caught, and couldn't spill all the information, that would protect the organization as a whole. The government had to know they existed, but what if that resistance was built into the system? Just like in that novel, the novel that Collins had liked so much…

She couldn't remember the title of the book. Of course, Collins read so much. And after he moved in with Angel, Mimi heard more and more about the novels—classics, Shakespeare, political science texts, economics, pop novels, dystopia… According to Angel, Collins would read anything that sat still long enough. Angel's apartment had already been overflowing with fabric swatches, half-completed projects, sewing supplies, flowers and herb gardens, but when one added Collins' books to the place, an explosion occurred. Art and literature, color and words… that apartment had been so beautiful.

Smiling sadly, she thought of their room at the compound. All their things had been left at their previous apartments, then the townhouse. But still… there was a chair in the corner of her and Roger's room. Angel's skirt and Collins' jacket were always over that chair. Sometimes she picked up the skirt, remembering the way it swished when Angel wore it. Angel had made that skirt herself. She had made a lot of her own clothes, not because of some ideological battle against sweat shops or chain stores with pre-made clothes, but because it was cheaper.

The buzz of the helicopter faded into the background. Mimi sighed, remembering sunny afternoons at Angel's apartment, sipping tea as a cool breeze came through the window, gently blowing the tulips around. She remembered going to the fashion company where Angel worked, being awed by the models and the designs, comfortable with the free expression they encouraged. She remembered lunchtimes when Angel would take an extended lunch and they would pick up deli sandwiches and race the ten blocks from Angel's company to NYU, just so Angel could surprise Collins.

"What'cha thinking about, Sarge?" Cortland asked.

"Old times," Mimi replied.

_Opportunities and choices…_

Maureen used to say that. There was a time, during one of her and Roger's early break-ups, that Mimi had ended up talking with Maureen. She hadn't expected much sympathy from the drama queen, but she was surprisingly insightful.

_Life is opportunities and choices. You make the choice to take opportunities or leave them. What are you going to do here?_

Her choice had been to make amends with Roger.

She had been dwelling on the past for so long. She wanted to let go, but couldn't. What had happened was so unfair, so unjust… something none of them could have imagined on that fateful Christmas Eve that had thrown them into each other's lives.

_This family tree's got deep roots._

Deep roots… perhaps that was the reason for this unrelenting obsession to find out what had happened to them. She was exhausted and sick to her heart from what innocent people had suffered, but there was no stopping now. She would find out what happened to them, even if that search ended in a funeral.

The chopper landed with a gentle bump on the roof of the precinct building. Mimi started and glanced at her watch. She hadn't realized how much time had passed. The sunny idyllic afternoons with Angel made her ache in a way she couldn't quite identify. She didn't want the past. She just wanted Angel to have a future. They all had their futures taken from them. Perhaps there wasn't hope for any of them, but there was still hope for Tommy and Jo…

She said her goodbyes to Cortland, and hailed a cab to take her back to the compound. There was little point in staying at the office. The information needed to be given to Pam. It wouldn't do any good sitting on her desk where a good little government member could find it and indict her for so many things.

The golden sun was sinking behind the horizon as the cab sped out of the city and towards the outskirts of town. She sighed. The Alkali Lake cells had been underground, meaning that the prisoners had not seen sunlight in… years. Had that happened to Angel and Collins, Maureen and Joanne? Ten years without sunlight? It seemed unthinkable, but many things had seemed unthinkable before their current government rose.

The old china teacups Angel found at a second-hand store… Mimi didn't know why she was remembering them now. The white porcelain with a delicate pattern of pink and blue flowers. Angel loved those cups. What had happened to them? Probably gone, just like everything else. One afternoon, she had walked in. One of those cups had been perched on a paint can as Angel studied a canvas, not a real picture, just a swirl of colors, warm… comforting, just like Angel.

Her movements were on auto-pilot as she scanned her stim-card and walked into the compound, stopping at the checkpoint to scan her thumbprint.

Roger was standing at the stove, stirring something in a pot when she walked into their living quarters. Tommy and Jo were on the floor with Mark, playing a card game.

"Hi," Roger said as she walked over to him. He pressed a quick kiss to her lips. "Did you guys find anything?"

She nodded.

"What's wrong?"

"I was just thinking… they haven't seen sunlight in ten years."

Roger mirrored her nod, slowly, his blue-gray eyes distant. "Christ, we're so close," he muttered. "We just need to get the information Pam needs to her."

"I know," she replied. "I know."

She touched the ends of his hair, as it curled around his collar. For so long, all they had was each other and a distant reminder of a family.

_Friendship is thicker than blood._

True… so true. Friends were the family they forged for themselves. Those ties ran deeper than the mere mistake of biology or genetics. She wouldn't have chosen her biological family if given the choice again. There was a reason she left LA and came to New York in the first place.

"Mimi?"

She shook her head, coming out of her reverie. "I'm going to give this to Pam," she said, holding up the small notebook. "Wait dinner for me, will you?" He nodded again, and she kissed his cheek. "You need to shave," she quipped.

"You don't need to tell me the obvious," he called after her, as she headed for the tech rooms where Pam spent most of her time.

"You're obviously not aware of it, if you won't do anything about it!"

"I am aware of it!"

Mimi smiled as Roger's voice faded. Sometimes she swore that the biggest kid in the entire compound was Roger.

-----------------

_Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce._

You've been alone for several days now. No one has come to take you to the med center for tests, not since… you find it odd that no one took you to the med center after, after… well, it's just odd. Odd that only the psychiatrist came to see you. You're not sure what is going to happen, but you've never been sure about what is going to happen.

But, one of the others is alive. You keep that thought close, wrap it around yourself like a blanket. That mere thought is like a balm. Someone else knows what you've gone through. Someone else understands. You're not alone. He told you about the letter that he had yet to send. You hope that he can find a way to succeed. He promised to change the letter to tell Roger that you're still alive as well. Two… two of the others…

You're not sure how much longer you will be alive. You're never sure.

_James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln…_

A wry smile cracks your parched lips. You remember reading about Lincoln as a child and being awed at his accomplishments. A better idol would have been Harriet Tubman. But Lincoln… you learned he had been a lawyer, so you decided that was what you wanted to do. A lawyer. Your parents had been ecstatic. Good old Mom and Dad, supportive to the end.

It had been their idea for you and Maureen to go to the summer house in Maine. They thought that the security and the surveillance would have been less in rural areas. How to know rural areas meant more citizen involvement, more finger-men? How to know that people started rumors, despite the fact that you and Maureen never introduced each other in public as more than family friends? Careful, too careful, hiding too much…

The door to your cell opens. You pull your knees to your chest, trying to fight the innate panic at the sight of a guard and a woman in a white coat. No choice…

"Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant."

"Joanne, we're taking you to the med center to run some tests."

You begin rocking back and forth. Ignore them, just ignore them. Focus on the presidents and the anxiety will go away. Presidents… "Rutherford B. Hayes. James Garfield."

The guard grabs your hands and begins to drag you. You've been dragged before, especially after being given a new injection. This isn't unusual. You don't feel the pain in your shoulders, not like you used to. You're used to being manhandled.

"Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland."

"What's she muttering?" the guard asks.

"Presidents of the United States," the doctor replies. "I've heard her get through all of them during one trip to the med center."

"Why would she memorize them?"

"I think it's an anti-anxiety tool."

"Weird."

"Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley."

Someone pushes you onto a bed with white sheets, sterile. The place smells of antiseptics, too clean. The doctor is explaining something, but you are beyond feeling, beyond caring. She wears a white mask over her face. Ignore what she's doing… presidents… presidents…

"Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson."

Something cold and metal is placed—no! Concentrate!

"Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover." You pause and take a ragged breath. In a distant portion of your mind, you know what this trip is about, what they are looking for. Just once… another human… someone who cares.

"Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower." Another pause. "John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson."

"Christ, that is annoying! Can we shut her up?"

A pinch and a drifty, dreamy sensation. They've given you a tranquilizer—this isn't the first time they've done that. Better an unconscious patient than one who recites the presidents on a loop.

"Richard M. Nixon… Ford…"

Your voice refuses to cooperate, but you mark the stopping point. Ford. You'll pick up with Ford when the tranquilizer wears off.

Voices, distant, tinny… "It's confirmed. Do we have a candidate for this test?"

"Yes. Do you really think this will work?"

"Of course… no need to tell her, or the man, that she's not really sterile."

_To be continued…_

-----------------

**Author's Note: **Hey all! It's been quite a while, hasn't it? I hope someone remembers this piece! Thanks for your continued reading and support. I watched the movie the other day and read my outline. I realize that this piece started with the thread for Angel, and that will probably be the motivation to finish this piece. Please be patient. I have finals and a summer job, but I'll do my best. Rest assured that this piece has not been abandoned.


	7. A Plan

**Disclaimer: **It's Jonathan Larson's sandbox. The toys belong to some other copyrighted kids. I will remain here until the sandcastle competition ends.

**Author's Note: **The Care Bears are on LSD. The Fraggles are on speed. Gonzo is a masochist and Miss Piggy is manic. Kermit's got to be popping Valium from dealing with those crazies. That is all.

------------------

**NIGHT** **FALLS**

By Etcetera Kit

**Chapter Six: A Plan**

Sweat rolled off the end of his nose. He pushed his glasses back up, but the gesture was futile. Even with one fan aimed directly on him and another on the computer, the temperature in the room remained close to tropical. All he needed was some palm trees and colorful birds to complete the look. The warm breeze of a few days ago had faded. He'd lived in around New York his entire life and had learned one thing—New York in summer was like the inside of a pizza box, hot and aromatic.

Mark stopped typing for a moment and rolled his shoulders. The piece of paper sitting on the desk gave them police permission to snoop around in government files. Another clerical error. How long before the FBI realized their error and withdrew that little piece of paper that protected them if they got caught hacking? Mimi claimed a long time, since the FBI liked brutalizing people, not doing paperwork. But assumption was bad. He'd rather assume that this was a race against the clock with the powers-that-be.

So much programming to be written…

Pam had said she could write a program that would allow them in a back door of the facility firewalls, and decrypt most of the pertinent information that they would need. But she wouldn't be able to write the program on her own—that would take too long. She'd need at least one more set of hands, and Mark had a feeling that Roger would be recruited before too much longer. Over the years, he had at least learned to type quickly and accurately.

Sighing, Mark stood up. Pam had disappeared somewhere, so he didn't feel bad taking a break and getting more coffee.

The halls were silent, the fluorescent lights flickering madly as he made his way to their living quarters. Like an office from those old movies in the 80s about office life and oppression. He smiled at that. Most films had been banned. The only sanctioned films were those that were "educational" or public service announcements about curfews or new restrictions. A part of him was glad he worked at a television station and away from the lifeless movie industry.

A fresh pot of coffee had already been made. That took away part of the work right there. What did Roger think he was doing tonight, because Roger was the only one that made coffee late at night? Mimi only drank coffee at work, preferring tea around here. There had been a point in Mark's life when he drank tea exclusively, but the need for more caffeine and the ability to pull all-nighters had resulted in the switch to coffee.

He pulled a large mug from a cabinet. Too hot for hot coffee… so… He filled the mug two-thirds of the way with coffee and headed for the freezer. He opened the door, grateful that someone had fixed their ice-maker.

"You are not about to—"

Mark dumped a handful of ice cubes in the hot coffee.

"And you did it."

Mark shut the freezer and turned to face Roger. The former rocker was wearing a pair of worn sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt. His hair was haphazardly tied back with a rubber band. Mark squinted at his hair—there was something else holding it back.

"Is that Mimi's hair clip?"

"It's Jo's, for your information." Roger crossed the small tiled area that delineated the kitchen from the rest of the area and poured himself a mug of coffee. He leaned against the counter, looking pointedly at Mark's iced coffee. "I don't understand why you do that to good coffee."

Mark shrugged. "It's too hot to drink as it is."

"Weirdo," Roger muttered under his breath.

"Weirdo? I'm not the one drinking hot coffee in the middle of summer!" Roger didn't reply, just blew on the hot coffee to cool it. "So what are you doing up?"

Roger nodded to the paperwork that had been spread on the kitchen table. "New zone restrictions, meaning I have to memorize them, write a statement from the mayor, and write a dozen different people speeches about it."

"That sounds… thrilling."

The sarcastic grin was enough for Mark to know how displeased Roger was with the repetitive busy work. Write the same speech a dozen times, and vary it enough that people won't feel like they're listening to the same spiel? The television station might have been boring and repetitive, but not the kind of stagnation that Roger faced each day.

"Did you get out of the speeches this time?"

"One of those dozen is for me." Roger pushed himself off the counter and sat down at the table. He stared at the papers for a moment, before looking up at Mark. "Pam still has you writing programming?"

"Yeah." He sighed, sipping the cold coffee. "She swears that we'll have the program done by tonight if we work through the night."

"That's Pam." Roger paused. "At least she doesn't have you highlighting e-mails."

"True."

They fell silent for a moment. Friends ever since being in jail together and Collins bailing them out. Ten years of fruitless endeavors and searches, only to be so close. But the programming couldn't be rushed. He didn't want to make a mistake that would set them back. Their family would be together again, soon.

As many books as films had been banned, but, somehow, Roger had found an old copy of _1984_. He had been reading it earlier that night, just before he put Tommy and Jo to bed. Mark remembered, just before the cure, when Collins had referenced that novel, talking about how Orwell had called the situation so many years ago. Now, the nightmare of dystopia had come to pass. Life had been downright shitty before the acts and the revolutions, but he'd rather be living in that industrial loft with no heat any day over this half-life of hoping, only to be disappointed.

Mark glanced back to Roger and studied the hair clip. Now that he looked at it more closely, it definitely belonged to Jo, not Mimi. It had faux silk pink roses on it. Mark grinned. There was certainly one thing to be told from that hair clip and the fact that Roger was wearing it.

"You know, Angel would be proud that you're wearing that clip around—it shows you're comfortable with your sexuality and your identity."

"It was the only thing I could find," Roger shot back. Then he sighed, "But you're right." He shook his head. "Jo needs to find a new favorite color. I'm tired of pink."

So much was unspoken in that statement. Angel had loved bright colors, mostly riotous and brought together in a semblance of order. It had always been easy to spot Angel and Collins. Angel was the brightest spot of color in a crowd, and Collins would be slouching behind him, usually searching for a light. Collins never could find a lighter when he needed one.

"I'm sure she'll move onto something equally as revolting next."

"What? Boyfriends? I don't have a problem going back to prison."

Mark laughed. "You've never been in prison for more than a few hours."

"All those potential boyfriends don't know that." Roger sighed, suddenly looking older than he really was. "Jesus, Mark, she's five already. I mean, soon enough, she _is _going to be getting boyfriends and going out with her friends, and I'll just be—"

"Her old man?"

"Exactly." Roger sighed again. "My old man split when I was her age. I always promised myself that I'd never abandon my children, if I lived long enough to have any." He paused, looking at a spot in the distance. "And now, it's not that I'm going anywhere, but with the missions and the field work and the changing zones," he gestured to the paperwork. "Christ, I want her and Tommy to be away from all of this."

"We'll get them out," Mark replied softly.

"When? We've been saying that for years—since Tommy was born."

"Soon." His voice was low and determined. "We've always stayed because we didn't know what had happened to the others, but we'll know soon. Then we can get out, go to England." Mark paused, a wry smile going over his face. "Then you can worry about Jo running into some boy at the boarding school next door, because you'll send her to an all-girls' school."

"Why worry about boys next door, when there'll probably be a fair number of lesbians right in the school she could hook up with?" Roger wrinkled his nose. "You know. I don't even want to think about her getting a boyfriend, much less a girlfriend."

"Tommy could always get a boyfriend."

Roger rolled his eyes. "They are my children—I love them and will support whatever lifestyle they choose, but I don't want to think about them in relationships yet. They're too young!"

Mark shook his head. Roger didn't often open up about his fears and worries concerning his children. Those worries were there, deeply hidden. Like the rest of them, he told himself that everything would be all right. They'd get out eventually. Mark stretched his arms over his head.

"Well, I'd better get back to programming."

"Yeah, I need to do these speeches."

"Try to get some sleep," Mark said over his shoulder as him and his iced coffee headed back for the tech room.

"Hey, pot," Roger called back. "Don't call the kettle black."

Mark laughed and walked away, back to where Pam had set up camp. Hopefully, soon, they would know and the obsession would end. Even if it ended with memorial services and grave markers, they would know and there would be some closure. Then, in good conscious, they could leave and get to England, to make a better future for Tommy and Jo.

-----------------

_Gerald Ford… Jimmy Carter… Ronald Reagan…_

You aren't sure what's happening anymore. Surgery… surgery isn't odd. Patients are often taken to surgery when infections or side effects become too much. But this… this _is_ odd. Someone bathes you—not the sterilizing showers once a week that burn, and are mostly to kill insects and prevent gangrene, but gentle, soothing, like they actually are trying to clean you.

Your mind and your body won't cooperate. You are too weak to do much of anything other than allow yourself to be manhandled. That is not unusual. Are they actually trying to make you comfortable after all this pain and heartache? Clean sheets, a clean hospital gown… you want to ask what is going on, what the occasion is, but your tongue feels like cotton and you can't articulate the words. Somewhere, just beyond the reach of consciousness, you know that something is not right, but you can't remember what.

Does this have to do with you and Collins?

Remembering hurts. You can't recall snippets of conversation, something that might lead you to what the doctors want or are talking about. Hushed voices come from behind a screen. Distantly, you realize that this room is nice, almost like a hotel room—miles and miles above anything that you've been allowed to have.

"—natural mother is ill. She won't last much longer."

"What of the father?"

"He won't be a problem."

You wonder what these people are talking about. You wish that you had the energy—the strength—to care or ask questions. You can't. A memory from an old case comes back to you, because you had to visit a client in the hospital. You remember the heart scans, but can't remember what they were called. The doctors did those on you. After all this time and infection and disease, has your heart finally given out?

A blessing, if that happens.

The door opens.

_George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison_…

A doctor gives you an injection. Immediately, you begin to feel more disconnected and woozier than before. Why keep you under more? It's not like you can make yourself articulate words anyways. Slowly, blackness closes in on your vision. A tranquilizer? Again?

Darkness… sleep…

When you awake, it's back in the normal med center. The beds are only covered with a top sheet. You feel vaguely sore and an IV is in your arm. What vital part did they decide to hack away now? People have died from less.

_James Monroe, John Quincy Adams…_

Sleep, then feverish waking. What is going on? A doctor flocks near your bed, scribbling something on a clipboard. You feel too warm, but also light-headed and dizzy, unable to keep the room from spinning around you. The doctor adjusts the IV and injects another fluid into it. What… what…

_Andrew Jackson… Martin van Buren…_

A tear leaks out of the corner of you eye, wet, real, the first thing that you've been sure of in a long time. What have they done to you? Even if you could make your voice cooperate, you're not sure that anyone would tell you anything. The less you know, the better—that's probably their motto. If you can tell the tale, then they won't be at risk.

"I need—"

The treatment sounds distant, from an out-of-tune radio. Why would they need to give you adrenaline? Another doctor comes into the room, followed by someone else—an orderly? Their faces swim above you in a haze.

_William Henry Harrison… John Tyler… James K. Polk…_

You tune them, concentrating on the litany of presidents that goes through your mind. Is this insanity? Relying on dead white men from an extinct position of power and authority? Insanity… what does that word even mean? If it means being out of touch with reality, you want someone to sign you up, because anything would be better than the here and now.

_Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan._

"We might lose her. Tonight is most critical."

_Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Hayes, Garfield._

Sleep again.

You awake and want to scream, if only your throat would comply.

Why can't they let you die?

-----------------

"And we're… done."

Mark stretched his arms over his head, feeling a sense of completion at the program. The clock read two in the morning. At least the programming was over and they could now get down to the actual purpose of writing this program. Pam was typing furiously at the keyboard of the main console.

"And if I've done this correctly," she continued, "We should have the results in about half an hour or so."

"That long?"

Pam gave him a scathing look over the top of her glasses. "There are a lot of prisoners to go through and you want this to be accurate, right?"

He sighed. "Yes."

"Go get more coffee."

"Yes, m'am."

Pam gave him one last scathing look as he stood up and left the tech room. He'd have to make a fresh pot of coffee, since he was fairly certain that Roger had gone to be a long time ago. His longtime friend was good at writing speeches with slight variations, so that part of the project probably hadn't taken him all that long.

At least that assumption was correct. The light in the living room area of their quarters was still on—that was almost always on, because somebody was up way too late. Common courtesy for one another, he supposed. They hadn't even had that problem ten years ago in the industrial loft—the large windows let in the moonlight.

Someone—probably Roger—had washed the coffee carafe and filter. Mark took them out of the drainer and opened a cupboard, looking for another filter and the actual coffee. The task was done quickly enough and Mark watched as the machine went to work. The hiss and burble of the coffee maker was the only sound in the living room.

Life always stopped at night now. With curfews and restrictions, no one ventured out after dark. The world was silenced, eerie and devoid of life. Besides, creatures that lurked in the dark… those stories were true. Patrol men, ready to shoot at shadows, even if the shadow did belong to a living being. Nothing was sacred…

Mark let his gaze wander to the fridge. Drawing that Tommy and Jo made in school were posted proudly. He smiled sadly. They had grown up in a microcosm, here in the complex. They were sheltered from the horrors of the outside world, from the conformist school system that was going back several centuries, from mindless worship of government officials. Bribes, blind spots, just so they could carry on business. Roger had been reading _1984_, where the resistance turned out to be a fabrication by the government. What if the Patriots were allowed to continue for that same principal? What if their leaders were bribed by the government… what if…

He shook his head. Now was not the time to being concocting ridiculous theories, using a book written decades ago as proof.

The coffee was done. He poured himself a cup and went through the ritual of putting ice in it. A hot mug for Pam and he was walking back towards the tech room.

The screen of the computer reflected off Pam's glasses, making her look like a bug with over-large eyes. He might have been amused for a moment if that didn't happen every time Pam sat in front of a computer. The forensics computer expert… she'd come a long way from the timid young woman she'd been in the Life Support meetings.

"Program's running," she said, taking the coffee.

"And?"

Without looking at him, she peeled a post-it from the desktop and pushed it in his hands. "Since we already knew that Joanne Jefferson was being transferred to Sing-Sing, I made a confirmation of her first. She's there." Pam paused, still watching numbers flash across the screen. The decoding probably made sense to her. "The pertinent data that you'll need to get her is heavily encrypted. I have it isolated and I'll have to decode it later, but that post-it has her cell number and current location—those aren't encrypted."

Mark looked at the slanted, scrawled handwriting on the blue sticky note. He could barely make out Joanne's name, and squinted to decipher the number. However, he could read the current location clearly. _Medical center._ His heart jumped.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked shakily.

Pam shrugged, not because she didn't care, but because she had too many other things to worry about, besides this project that he, Mimi and Roger wanted her to work on. "I don't know—like I said, all that sort of stuff is encrypted."

He sank into a chair next to Pam, still staring at the post-it. _Medical center…_ what did that mean? He couldn't know until Pam decoded the files. For all he knew, something like that could be routine… or as much as medieval torture could be routine. Joanne… they had known where she was for a while, but had been hampered on progress.

He watched as Pam pushed the rolling desk chair between two systems, each running the program—he assumed on different facilities. Mark had given Pam all the information he could on each of the others—race, birthdates, current ages, former occupations, orientations, creeds… so she could make as accurate a match as possible.

She moved back to a monitor and tapped a few keys. She pulled a clean sticky note from the top of the pad and scribbled something on it. "Got another at Sing-Sing," she said, pushing the note at Mark and herself towards the second monitor.

He looked at the new post-it. _Sing-Sing… Thomas Collins… cell 3145… in cell…_

His mind froze as his hand shook. Collins… he was in the same place as Joanne. And in his cell, not the medical center, meaning… Mark didn't know what it meant, but he was afraid to be happy, afraid that this might all be a dream he would wake from.

Pam was suddenly scribbling on another note.

Mark took the new note.

_Portsmouth. Maureen Johnson. Cell 1732. In cell._

Maureen… she was in the facility in Maine, the one near the ocean, the one that Roger had speculated might make the easiest jail break. He let out a shaky breath. Maureen had broken up with him, gone to Joanne, that much was true, but, in his own way, he had always loved her. He would probably always love her in some way. She was… God, what would life have been like without Maureen all those years ago? Boring, that's what.

Another sticky note.

_Portsmouth. Angel Schunard. Cell 1733. Medical center._

Angel and Maureen had cells next to each other?

Mark looked from the notes in his hand to Pam. "They're really alive?" he whispered, throat clogged and unshed tears stinging his eyes.

"They really are," Pam replied. She glanced at the screens. "I've isolated their personal files and I'll get that information to you by tomorrow. Let me know about anymore hacking or forging I'll need to do to get them out."

"Thank you."

Pam shrugged. "Hell, I remember Collins and Angel. I liked them. Good guys."

Mark's gaze locked with Pam's for a split second before he did the only thing that made sense—he bolted from his chair and ran down the hall and up the stairs to their quarters. Roger and Mimi had to know all this—_now._ Urgency pushed him, even though the information would still be there in the morning.

He didn't bother to knock on their door, just ran in, bounced onto the side of the bed and violently shook Roger. "Roger!" he cried, voice raised in pitch. "Mimi!" he added, with one or two cursory shakes for Mimi.

"What?" Roger grumbled. "I have a speech at—"

"We found them!"

_That_ got their attention. Mimi turned on a lamp on her side of the bed and Roger sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Where?" Mimi asked, crawling over Roger.

Mark handed her the sticky notes. She studied each one, Roger looking over her shoulder. A smile spread over her face. They were all alive—and wasn't that what they'd been hoping for all these years? Hope… and all of them were there.

"Yes," Mimi breathed softly. "Yes!"

Laughter bubbled up. Mimi wrapped her arms around Mark and Roger, pulling them into a group hug. "I can't believe it," Roger said, shaking his head and blinking. "All this time… and we didn't know. We didn't know."

"We know now," Mark replied, "And we're getting them back."

They were laughing and crying at once, trying to make sense of the tumult of emotions. More than ever, Mark wished he had his camera. This was the moment that all filmmakers tried to capture—the true dichotomy of human emotions. They were holding each other.

Mimi studied the post-its again. "Angel and Maureen were next to each other?" she murmured. "What were the chances of that happening?"

"None."

For a long moment, they stared at each other.

Roger cleared his throat, breaking the silence. "We'll need a jail break at Sing-Sing, and an undercover smuggle job at Portsmouth."

"Sleep?" Mark asked with an innocent smile.

"You're touched in the head." Roger stood up. "We plan now."

------------------

I stare at the letter in my hands—the one I never had a chance to send, because I saw Joanne and… Life has gone back to normal around here. Well, whatever normal is. I am taken to Paul several times a week to have my head shrunk. Sometimes I cooperate and he gives me a newspaper. Sometimes I don't and take a beating from the guards. At least that unpredictability adds some zest to the dull, monotony of life around here.

Joanne… no one tells me anything about her. I've asked. Paul pretended that he had temporarily gone deaf and couldn't hear me. There's different classifications of prisoners here—no one talks about it, but everyone knows. I am a psych prisoner, one whose mind they want to pick apart. Joanne is… I can't even describe what she might be. I know what they've done to her and other prisoners like her. But I can't find the words…

In undergrad school, I had to read a novel by a Holocaust survivor. He wrote that the Nazis were purposefully unspeakably cruel, just so that no one would be able to narrate the atrocities that were inflicted upon them. That principle remains the same. Most of what was done to me—said to me—why would I want anyone else to hear or read? For them, it would just be a brand of pornography, something to gape at and forget in a moment, just like a splatter film. Nothing to remember other than the gratuitous gore.

_Angel…_

For ten long years, the thought of her has kept me alive. Her spirit, her willingness to fight, her generosity, her kindness… She never hurt anyone, and someone was now hurting her for being different, for being herself.

Orwell and Huxley… Gilliam and Jewison… dystopia visionaries. Did any of them suspect that their dark visions would come true? Paper pushers, mindless controlled masses, surveillance in all aspects of life, test tube babies… and no one heeded their warnings.

It's time. I've been sitting here, slowly spiraling into insanity in my own mind. I need to do something visible. It never was in my nature to sit back and allow things to happen. I always spoke up and fought, wrote letters, marched and petitioned. People always thought I was being clever or smart-assed, but I meant every word I said. I believe in freedom—nothing more. Anarchy was one way to absolute freedom…

I remember coming into the apartment. Angel would be sitting at the table, drawing, sometimes with charcoal, so her fingers would be black. Our schedules had always been unpredictable, but we still found time to be together. First day of classes at NYU… Angel forced me to wear a shirt and tie because I had to make a good first impression. The cool, sleek, artist style that Angel wore to work… tank tops with open dress shirts and always, always, a beret or English driver's cap. Angel was the master of personas, but never lost herself in them.

Time… time to save myself…

The door to my cell opens. I don't bother to hide the letter. I'll get the damn thing in mailbox if it kills me in the process. And it might. It just might.

"On your feet," the guard barks.

Slowly, I stand up.

"Let's go," he adds, grabbing my upper arm and pulling me out of the cell.

I've been reduced to something I never wanted to be—complicit. I hate complicity—it is what causes dictatorships to rise, it is what allows corruption to happen. Fucking complicity. I had some noble heroic notion about sharing the same fate as Angel, but… Christ, Angel is probably dead. And if Angel is dead, then there's nothing left to live for.

_I think they meant it when they you can't buy love, now I know you can rent it, a new lease, you are my love…_

Rent love? Shit, that lease wasn't up yet.

Without thinking about it, I yank my arm from the guard's. He looks startled, because the most resistance I've ever shown before was smart-ass remarks. Mailbox is near. The guard calls for back-up and I hear the sound of heavy boots running down the hall. I don't care. With shaking hands, I open the mail slot and shove in my letter.

Almost as soon as that happens, I feel a heavy blow to my shoulder. The force is so great that I don't feel the pain. I'll feel it later, when the adrenaline wears off. For now…

"What is he doing?"

Another guard yanks my arm and pulls me to my feet. "Don't know, sir. Seemed obsessed with the mailbox here."

"Whatever for? He has no way to send mail."

"Don't know."

"Take him back to his cell. He's a lost cause now anyways."

------------------

"Sue's done a lot of work in government hospitals. She's the logical choice for a plant—we can manufacture transfer papers."

Mark looked at the faces around the table. Pam had a sheaf of papers in front of her, pushing her glasses up her nose. Roger had his chin propped on his hand, elbow on the table. He looked skeptical at their choice of a plant. Mimi appeared thoughtful, mulling over the various possibilities in her mind. Roger's initial assessment had been correct. The prisoners at Portsmouth could be smuggled out—and the planning wouldn't take as long. Sing-Sing, however, required a full out jail break because of it's proximity to the city and reinforcements. With Portsmouth, if someone escaped, the staff just assumed the person starved or drowned in the nearby sea. Sing-Sing… those prisoners had to be tracked down before they spilled the beans.

"How would we get her up there?" Mark asked.

Pam glanced to Roger. The former rocker cleared his throat. "I have a vehicle pass—I use it when I have to drive around the mayor or someone important. It won't be too hard to find a free vehicle and use that as the transport for Sue."

"Records?"

"Always doctored at the end of the month because people forget to fill out the logs. No one will look twice at that."

He nodded. "You won't be able to stay up there. You'll have to get back."

Roger gave him a bored look. "I know that."

"How's Sue going to get them out?" Mimi asked.

Pam sat up straighter. "Remember how I told you that I rescued an endangered penguin?" Roger groaned, indicating he had been the one to hear the story. "It's the same principle," she continued. "Sue would be working in the med center. If she says she needs to see Maureen for testing, and Angel is already there—"

"Why's Angel there?" Mimi asked.

"Broken leg," Pam replied. "Records don't say how, but that's the injury."

"Jesus," Mimi breathed.

"Anyways," Pam continued, clearing her throat. "She can get both of them in the med center. From there, she can get them civilian clothes and these." She set two visitor badges on the table. "She'll just claim that they're two interns from a med school, there to observe."

"And no one will question that?" The story sounded flimsy to Mark—something that would never hold water and backfire in their faces.

"Timing, Cohen," Roger said. Mark turned to his friend, frowning. "She's going to do this late at night when the majority of the staff is asleep and the guards are on a minimal rotation." He paused. "Mimi and I will plant a car in the woods up there before Sue goes. If all this goes well, she'll get them out of the facility, into the truck and to the safe house in Augusta before dawn. Once they get to the safe house, Sue can communicate with Pam to manufacture papers for them. None of the regular police bands will be looking for them, since they don't exist. From there, they'll be able to get here without a problem."

"So much can go wrong," Mimi murmured.

"Isn't that how prison breaks normally are?" Pam asked.

Mimi was silent, but the fear was evident in her dark eyes. They all knew how fragile the situation was—would they be able to go on, knowing that the prison break had been tried and failed, ending in…

He didn't want to articulate the words, not even to himself.

Pam gathered her documents. "I'll get Sue up here in a few minutes. For now, I suggest that you get some coffee and get ready for work. We can brief Sue before you guys go to work." She paused, a wry smile coming over her face. "I'm sure she's ready to get out of here and get her hands dirty."

They were silent as Pam left the room.

After a few moments, Roger let out a long, audible breath.

Mimi shoved his arm.

"What?" he asked. "I'm the one that has to deliver Sue, but I can't stay around to make sure that they get out all right."

He had a point. Mark closed his eyes briefly, thinking of Maureen. What would it be like to see them after so long? What if they were just a shell of their former selves? What if the people they had known and loved were gone? Would it be better to assume them dead? So many questions and no answers.

Well, it was impossible to assume they were dead now. Not when they knew that they were alive. Alive… hope… Hopefully, within a few weeks, Angel and Maureen would be with them at the Patriots' complex—home, with their family, where they belonged. Sue would have to assess their health and that would determine how long they stayed at the safe house in Maine. And all their breaks had to be done under the radar of Trent and the other leaders of the Patriots… Pam would help them and so would Sue… the old Life Support bunch.

All three of them had wondered, hoped… Angel and Collins, Joanne and Maureen… some answers. Some… and the information they did have. Angel was in the medical center of the facility with a broken leg. How or why, just more questions. Maureen, according to Pam and her files, was coming off a new virus injection, recovering slowly. And Joanne… in the medical center with a myriad of conditions that didn't look good, mostly involving her heart. Collins… solitary confinement for the time being.

Thinking about their situations—the why behind the words—just caused more questions and more heartache. Concentrate on the here and now.

_Forget regret or life is yours to miss._

_No other road, no other way._

_No day but today._

This evening, Roger would drive Sue to the facility in Maine. Tomorrow evening, Sue would begin the process of getting Angel and Maureen to the safe house. Hopefully. If all went according to plan. But, as Mimi had said, so much could go wrong.

"I hear you have an assignment for me."

They all looked up as Sue entered the room. None of them had gotten coffee or started getting ready for work, like Pam had suggested. And since Pam, herself, worked for the precinct, she had to get downtown by nine. Sue appeared as if she had been up all night—a little more careworn. She sat down at the table.

Roger gave her the brief version of their plan.

Sue nodding, thumbing through the notes she had. "Pam gave me the parts of their files she had decrypted," she said. "I'll have to make a more detailed medical assessment once I get there. Schunard doesn't appear to have had recent viral injections, but that broken leg concerns me. I'll have to see how badly injured the limb actually is." She paused. "Johnson might be too weak—again, I'll have to assess her there, see the severity of the infections."

"We know you'll do your best," Mark said quietly.

"I'll get them to the safe house, but it could be days—weeks—before either of them are strong enough to make the trip here."

Nods all around the table.

"The ideal situation would be that Schunard's leg has healed enough for a walking cast, and that Johnson has come off the virus enough to move on her own." She paused. "But being locked up for so long will have atrophied their muscles to a degree. They'll need time to build up strength."

"Just do what you can," Mark said.

Sue nodded and stood up. "In that case, I'll get my things together and get my documents from Pam." She turned to Roger. "What time are we leaving?"

"I've booked a truck from 1600 until 2000," he replied.

"I'll be ready then." She left the room.

Mimi looked at Roger. "Is that enough time to get up there and back?"

Roger shrugged. "With the way I drive? Sure."

Mimi looked torn between amusement and horror. "Right," she said slowly. "When are we planting a Patriots truck up there?"

Mark listened idly as Roger gave her the details for that operation. His mind wasn't on the logistics about planting cars or doctors. What would it be like to see them again after so long? Maureen had always been active, the center of attention, but she never dealt well with pain or suffering or lose. She always acted out, pretended like everything was all right. But if she had been with Angel for all these years… maybe, just maybe…

Angel had been almost the opposite of Maureen. Perhaps, more than any of them, Angel had been the one to understand lose and pain, and was able to deal with the situations more clearly. He had always been calm and sagacious, a comforting presence, a balm… He had been the one to calm everyone down, expressing his own emotions in a safe, controlled way. Never out of control and confident about himself and his life… unlike Maureen, who always teetered out of control and walked a fine line between acceptable and insane.

"Mark."

He turned to Roger, taking in his long-time friend.

"It's happening."

"I know."

"Are we ready for this?"

"I think we've been ready for this for ten years."

"I know." Roger paused. "I know."

_To be continued…_

-----------------

**The Real Author's Note:** Well, again, thanks for the support and kind words. I appreciate all feedback concerning this piece—it lets me know that this dystopia RENT thing isn't completely from left field and garners some interest. Since my summer job is starting soon, I won't have as much time to work on this piece, so please continue to be patient. Thanks!


	8. A Sunrise

**Disclaimer: **It's Jonathan Larson's sandbox. The toys belong to some other copyrighted kids. I'm here because alligators have invaded the sandcastle competition.

**Author's Note:** A serious author's note, I had to make some aesthetic choices regarding Angel and gender for this chapter. So far, Angel's been in the first person, hence avoidance of gendered pronouns. Well, here it was unavoidable. Seeing as Angel had been locked up for ten years for being "degenerate," I went with the choice that would make the most sense given that situation. Interestingly enough, Angel remains ambiguous about how she sees herself in the show and the movie. Please note for the other characters, I've tried to have each character refer to Angel as they would see Angel.

I also must thank The Free Library for some last minute help. My copy of _the Count of Monte Cristo_ had gone AWOL, so I found this place on a google search. They have the whole book on-line and I am grateful to them for bailing me out of a sticky spot. I would not have been happy if I had to change the book in this chapter. But that's neither here nor there. I appreciate all the feedback so far. Please keep commenting—the good, the bad and the ugly.

------------------

**NIGHT** **FALLS**

By Etcetera Kit

**Chapter Seven: A Sunrise**

Angel Dumott Schunard awoke to dull, pounding pain, and oppressive silence. He blinked, trying to focus on his surroundings. The med center—still. Ordinarily, the med center meant anything, but giggles and sunshine. However, the place hadn't been so bad since the broken leg. At least, here, the sheets were clean and the thin mattresses beat out the stone floor any day. Besides, being in the med center meant that he didn't have to go to the disinfecting once-a-week showers with everyone else. Med center patients got to have a real shower. No soap, just rubbing alcohol, but he wasn't going to complain.

He leaned back on the paper thin pillow. There was no escape from this cycle. He had tried—and failed. Death was the one release he wasn't allowed. And it might have worked, had the doctor not come by at that moment, saying he was part of some experiment. What experiment? It had been a while since he'd been given injections. Not that he ever knew what was going on in this place. No one deemed it necessary to tell him things.

Sunshine, flowers, colors… all those things seemed so foreign. He'd had them, once. He closed his eyes, trying to remember the warm sun, the hot pavement, making it from the fashion company to the deli to NYU in less than ten minutes, skidding to a halt just outside Collins' classroom as the lecture was letting out. Simple things, good things. Real things.

"Angel?"

He opened his eyes. Had someone just used his first name? No one had used his first name in a long time—if the doctors had to use a name, they used his last name. In fact, the doctors were convinced that 'Angel' wasn't his real first name. Apparently, they'd never met his mother. She had been a romantic at heart, and gave him and his sister names with a romantic, ethereal flair. Perhaps he had the better end of the bargain, since his sister abhorred 'Glorianna Belladonna.'

A white coat. He focused on the face of the doctor. She looked vaguely familiar, as if from a dream within a dream, from another life. She smiled, gently inspecting his broken leg.

In a flash, he remembered her. Life Support. She had been the older lady in their group—not much older. She never talked about how she contracted AIDS, but her aspiration had always been to be a doctor. He remembered her shy smile, her genuine laugh. "Sue?" he croaked, scarcely believing that she was real and here.

"Yes," she replied softly.

"How?"

"It's a long story." She paused, lowering her voice even more. "I'm here to get you out."

Her words seemed distant. He couldn't quite believe what she was saying. After so long, this wasn't possible. She couldn't get them out of here. He remained silent, watching as she went to a tub in the corner of the hall. The med center was a long, rectangular room and had been divided with screens and curtains to make individual rooms. His area was on the end, with the sinks and tubs visible. She poured another liquid into the tub, the acrid smell of vinegar hitting his nostrils. She turned on the water and the sound of gushing liquid filled the room.

After a few moments, she seemed satisfied that the tub was filled enough and turned off the water. She crossed the small area to him.

"Come on," she said, holding out her arms. "We need to get that cast off and get you in a walking cast." Angel didn't move, eyeing her warily. "The break was clean," she continued, as if his reservations had anything to do with the healing of the limb. "It's mended enough that the cast can come off and a walking cast will allow you to exercise the limb, while allowing it to continue mending."

No other choice—she was a doctor here. Angel swung his good leg off the bed, and followed with the leg in a cast. Using Sue's arms as a support, he managed to stand on one leg, keeping the bad leg off the ground. Stilling using Sue as a support, he hopped to the tub. Sue lowered him onto the edge of the tub. "You need to soak the leg until the cast dissolves," Sue explained.

Angel lowered the broken leg into the water, managing to maintain balance on the edge of the cold, aluminum tub. That much was a miracle. Perhaps that kickboxing jaunt a few weeks ago had actually helped, even if it had ended in broken limbs.

Still feeling surreal, he watched as Sue left his cubicle and disappeared into the one next door. He couldn't believe any of this, even if he had known Sue before. She could just be a part of the regime, here for… he didn't know.

Low voices came from the cubicle next door. Angel frowned, trying to ignore the vinegar. Sterile, medicinal scents were not unusual, but rubbing alcohol didn't have the same bite that vinegar did. And the voices… doctors and orderlies spoke to one another here, but patients—right, patients!—were backhanded for speaking or worse. He had learned to keep silent here.

But seeing Sue after so long… he hadn't even thought before speaking. It was almost as if life before… this… came rushing back. Freedom to speak when, where and what he chose. For a brief moment, Angel wondered if Sue knew about the others—Mark, Mimi and Roger… Collins… Maureen and Joanne. She would know, wouldn't she? If she was here, and claiming to help, escape…

Sue came back into his cubicle. Angel stared at her, knowing that the cast was thoroughly soaked at this point in time. She was quick and efficient as she removed the sopping wet cast, dried his leg—which looked dirtier and punier than ever—and got a walking cast in place. Despite the surreal quality of the situation, Angel could only think that Sue had really grown up and come into her own in all the years since Life Support. She would have had to.

She pulled a bundle from under the bed, motioning him closer. On closer inspection, he saw what was in the bundle—clothes, shoes. Sue held up the visitor's badge. Distantly, he recognized the photo as one from his old Pennsylvania driver's license.

"You are a med student at NYU," she said quietly and quickly. "You're field of specialization is biotech industries. You're here to observe some new advances. I am your academic advisor."

Angel nodded, frowning. "But the names, it's—"

"The same, yes." Sue paused. "Visitor logs and prisoner logs are never compared. And, because you've been a prisoner, you've been legally dead for ten years. Even if they discovered you on the outside, they could never prove you've been here, because you don't exist." She gave him a wry smile. "Your activities for the past ten years have been fictionalized as well."

Heavy footsteps could be heard coming into the med center. Sue shoved the clothing at him. "Hurry," she hissed. "I'll stall the guard."

Angel watched as she stepped into the hall. Her voice could be heard greeting the guard, explaining that someone else had already escorted the two prisoners back to their cells. The small talk was amazing to hear—the guard teased her about screwing up their routine, and Sue claimed that being the new guy caused those things.

He shook his head. He pulled off the orange uniform. Hands shaking and not quite remembering the motions, he put on the shorts and undershirt, the feel of clothing odd after such a long time. The shirt was long-sleeved and black, with a V-neck. The material was soft—cashmere? The cloth felt heavenly next to his skin. The jeans were next—one leg had already been split for the walking cast—a bit too big, but cinching the belt tighter solved that problem. Shoe and sock on the non-cast foot, and he slipped the visitor's badge around his neck.

Distantly, he heard Sue and the guard exchange closing pleasantries. The guard walked back towards the main desk, and Sue reappeared in the cubicle.

"Good," she said, inspecting his appearance. She picked up the hat from the bed—reminiscent of one he wore frequently before coming here—and jammed it on his head. "You'll need to put weight back on," she continued, "But the guards won't notice."

Angel doubted that, but didn't say so. Hadn't these same doctors and guards been dragging them all over this facility for years? Wouldn't they recognize someone that they had dragged from place to place? Beat up? Brutalized…

Sue pushed open the curtains to the neighboring cubicle. For a moment, Angel didn't recognize the woman sitting on the edge of the bed. Then it clicked. Maureen. Her hair hadn't been shaved in a while, so about an inch of brown hair covered her head. The shirt and slacks would have been attractive had she not been so thin.

"Maureen?" Angel limped across the small space, still not used to the walking cast. Maureen forced a smile and stood up. For years, only seeing a part of her face or her fingers… and now… He reached out and pulled Maureen into a tight hug. She returned the embrace.

"We've been together for so long," she whispered, "And now I finally get to see you."

"I know, honey," Angel replied softly. "I know."

"Let's go," Sue interrupted softly. "We have to get to the safe house before first light."

Angel released Maureen, and nodded slowly. The situation still felt too surreal, like things were happening too quickly to comprehend.

_No day but today…_

He shifted, taking Maureen's hand. She held on tightly.

Sue led the way out of the cubicle and into the hall. A single guard stood on duty near the end of the hall—not the guard Angel was used to seeing. He nodded at them as they approached. "My med interns," Sue said easily. "Stopped by to observe."

"State of the art, isn't it?" the guard asked them.

Heart pounding with terror, Angel couldn't make his voice work, so he just nodded. "Anyways," Sue continued. "We've got a long drive back to New York."

"Hear that," the guard responded. "Have a safe trip."

"Will do."

They walked past the guard and out, up… No one looked twice at them. They entered a huge lobby, complete with a reception desk, security checkpoint and night guard. He inspected their badges as Sue signed them out. Angel knew this guard—the one that broke his leg. He looked right into the guard's eyes… and the guard didn't recognize him.

------------------

Gray, pre-dawn light filtered through the window. He pushed the blankets off and glanced across the small room. Maureen was still asleep in the other bed. The real mattresses reminded him just how much his body hurt—and had become accustomed to aches and pains. And still, sleep was elusive.

The past few hours came back to him as a blur. They had left the facility without as much as a second glance from a guard. Sue had timed their departure just after a change of guards—no one knew that she hadn't ever brought in the two interns, and she doctored the visitor's logs. A truck had been waiting for them just beyond the facility gates, hidden in a wooded area. He and Maureen had been in the truck bed, under a blanket and a tarp. They clung to one another, listening to the wind howl, as they were jostled and bruised.

Still the dead of night when they got to the house.

A safe house, Sue had said, operated and run by an underground organization called the Patriots. The government turned a blind eye to their houses and complexes. Angel couldn't help but remember _1984_, when the resistance movement had turned out to be part of the government, designed to relieve pressure from the masses, like a pressure cooker.

Warmth and freedom, for the first time in… Sue had said they'd been in that facility for ten years. He found that hard to believe. Had so much time passed? He lost track of time fairly quickly and being underground only added to that disorientation.

And now… _no day but today._

Angel crept out of bed, careful not to wake Maureen. Sue had taken her blood pressure and run a score of tests last night, before they had gone to bed. She wanted to make sure that the latest infection was out of Maureen's system, and that she was recovering well.

The house was seemed bigger at this hour of the morning. The rooms were eerily quiet, his limp sounding much louder than it actually was. He glanced at the duffel bag of clothes at the foot of his bed. Before the adrenaline wore off last night, he had rifled through the bag. The pieces were dark colors, nothing like the bright, riotous things he wore all those years ago. All men's clothing… a part of his mind knew that dressing in drag was dangerous, if not lethal. Even the bright colors might be something frowned upon. The dark clothes were a necessity, something required for survival.

That didn't mean he had to like it.

He could remember ten years ago, when they received the cure. He and Collins had spent late nights thinking of ways to help. They wanted to distribute the cure to their friends and family. Organize protests, march on Washington, raise voter awareness and get people to the polls… all had been discussed as serious options.

_Those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither and will lose both._

The motto quoted, almost incessantly, to remind themselves that fear was not a reason to forfeit the things that made them unique, that made them human. If they sacrificed liberty, what else was left? And the rest of the world… what had happened when America fell to this insanity? Sue would know. He'd ask her what had happened in the ten years since he'd been locked away, the subject of bizarre tests.

Letting out an inaudible sigh, he went through the clothing and picked out a navy blue long-sleeved shirt and another pair of jeans. The bathroom seemed like a foreign land—the light having the same effect on his eyes as a supernova. So many years of only having a toilet and being put in a sterilizing shower. He wasn't sure what to do with the freedom to even bathe as he wanted.

Finally, he opted for a quick shower, using the nondescript soap that someone had left in the bathroom. Dirt was still caked under his fingers and toes—he'd have to soak for many hours before that got loose. And despite being relatively clean—for the facility standards—the water still ran gray, the soap lather turning the same color.

Weirdly, in those facilities, the doctors hadn't wanted to deal with rotting teeth, so their teeth were cleaned once a week with those disinfecting showers. He still felt better brushing his own teeth with actual toothpaste.

The sun still hadn't risen as he left the bathroom.

Almost as if the sun were waiting on him.

Ridiculous. Orbits didn't slow down because of one human being.

He dressed and padded out of the bathroom. He had taken off the walking cast to shower and saw no reason to put the thing back on now. Hopping along on one foot, he managed well enough. The stairs were even less of a challenge.

Downstairs was even quieter than up. He could hear the water heater of the house, the soft whir of fans. The rooms were warm, almost stuffy—another thing he hadn't felt in a decade. Their cells were always cool, but never quite cold. He moved through a hall and towards the back of the house. The porch faced the sea—east. He hopped over to the sliding glass door, resting one hand on the glass.

Slowly, golden light began to break over the horizon. The grays were melted with the morning mist as streaks of gold, orange and pink painted the sky. He blinked, shielding his eyes against the glare. The only bright lights for all those years were the fluorescent lights of the med center, not the natural light… not the sunrise.

Warm, breath-taking in its beauty…

There were no words to describe seeing the sunrise after so long—he had thought he'd die without seeing another sunrise, daylight…

A tear rolled down his cheek, followed by another. Soon, he was sobbing, still staring at the rising run, unwilling to look away for fear that he'd miss a moment. His fingers against the glass clenched into a fist. _They_ had tried to steal the basic things from him, things he had taken for granted before being captured. _They_ had tried to say that he didn't deserve sunlight, that he was degenerate, something unnatural and evil. _They_ had wanted to crush him, take away all hope and light.

Well, _they_ were wrong.

The sun was his once again.

He didn't know how long he stood in front of that door, watching the sun climb into the sky. Eventually, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning slightly, he saw Sue. She smiled. "You need to put the walking cast back on," she said gently, no reprimand in her voice. "And I'd appreciate it if you'd help me get some oatmeal together for Maureen."

Food… that hadn't even occurred to him yet. "Real oatmeal?" he asked, voice shaking, and mind immediately going to the thin gruel they were given in the facility. He suspected some of the IVs actually had nutrients.

"Yes," Sue replied. "Oatmeal will be best for Maureen, since she hasn't had solid food in a while. But I was going to have fresh fruit and toast. Want some?"

Fruit? Toast? He hadn't been properly hungry in a long time, used to surviving on what little was available. Despite all the images and memories that came flooding back with the idea of food, he could only think of one thing. "Is there any green tea?" he asked softly.

"Lots." She paused, another smile gracing her face. "When we were stocking this place, Mimi mentioned that you liked green tea. She made sure lots came with the other supplies."

His mind froze for a moment. "You've seen Mimi?"

"And Roger. And Mark." Sue nodded towards the kitchen. "Let's find something to eat, then take something up to Maureen."

Angel followed Sue into the kitchen. "Are they okay?"

"As fine as anyone can be, I suppose." She took a kettle from the stove and filled it with water from the sink tap. "They're living at a Patriots complex just outside New York City." She moved the full kettle to the stove and turned the heat on. "Mimi and Roger are married. They have two kids."

He almost couldn't wrap his mind around the idea. He'd stopped hoping for himself, because there was no hope, or he hadn't thought there was hope. But he'd never stopped hoping that Mimi and Roger and Mark were all right, alive and well somewhere. He'd hoped that Mimi and Roger got to have children that wouldn't have been a possibility before. He'd hoped that Mark would find a nice girl and settle down, raising a dozen kids. Roger and Mimi had two kids. They were all at a Patriots compound, which meant they were safe.

"How old are they?"

Sue seemed to know that he was asking about Mimi and Roger's kids. She took two mugs from a cupboard over the sink. "Tommy is seven," she replied. "Jo is five." Another pause. "Their full names are Thomas Angel and Joanne Maureen."

Angel raised a hand to his mouth, unshed tears burning in the back of his throat. A namesake… Collins would be mortified. _You picked a crappy person to name the kid after_, he'd say, all the while smiling and pleased that someone thought that highly of him. _Now look what'll happen. The kid'll become a wandering vagabond professor._

There were worse things. Much worse things.

He took a shaky breath and looked up at Sue.

"Do we have honey as well?"

------------------

The safe house didn't have many books, despite the fact that one room was obviously supposed to be a library. The shelves held knick-knacks, the kind of things wealthy people bought because they looked good or were expensive, but not because the people actually liked them. Angel figured that most of the books had to be hidden, because the titles displayed were the products of government propaganda.

Another supply truck had come a few days ago. With the extra food and household items, a small package had two books. Battered copies of _the Count of Monte Cristo_ and _1984_. Both of the books held so many memories. He hadn't read them—not yet. A part of him wanted to savor the feel of holding real books, the words of great authors. Collins had loved both the books. As he'd realized many times before, Angel knew that he'd read more books than he'd had in his entire life when he and Collins were together.

He remembered a spring afternoon when Mimi had come over to his apartment. She had picked up one of the books from a stack near the bedroom door. Montesquieu's _the Persian Letters_. Mimi had asked what the book was about, probably having images of Arabian Nights, and Angel hadn't quite known the reason for her shocked expression when he replied that the book was a key text about anarchy, the cornerstone of Collins' theories and lectures.

Only later, did he realize that he'd never had an interest in literature before. He wasn't stupid and had gotten decent grades in high school, and the few general core classes in fashion school. But he'd never been interested in a text beyond reading it for a class, and comprehending enough to pass the test and write an essay. Collins had introduced him to the pure joy of words on the page.

"Edmund Dantes," he murmured, stretching both legs in front of him. The mending leg ached and threatened to seize up, another sensation he'd grown used to. He couldn't stay in one position for very long, not without the danger of either collapsing or being unable to move from frozen muscles. And they couldn't go outside to swim in the ocean or run—Sue was wary, because they were still so close to the facility, in a relatively isolated area.

Maureen was slowly getting stronger. Once she was able to stay on a normal diet and sleep cycle, they'd move towards New York, to the Patriots' facility where Mimi, Roger and Mark lived. Angel looked across the library, to where Maureen was dozing on one of the small couches. The late afternoon sunlight spilled through the window. Somewhere, Angel had read that hair grew at the rate of about an inch a month. Maureen's hair was gotten to about two inches, already threatening to begin curling again.

He opened the book to the first page.

_Marseilles_ _-- The Arrival._

_On the 24th of February, 1810, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signaled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples._

He had struggled reading the book at first, but soon was entranced by the flow of words, the poetry, the beauty. Angel lowered the book to his lap, letting his gaze wander across the room to Maureen once more. She hadn't said much since they arrived here. Instead, he'd found himself talking and asking questions, anything to prevent silence. Strange, because silence had never bothered him before. He'd paint or sew, and Collins would read or grade papers, and they'd just _be_.

Now, in this moment, the silence was all right. Things were never really silent. The distant crash of the waves on rocks, Maureen's gentle and even breathing, Sue moving dishes and pans in the kitchen, the howl of the wind… the days were sunny and warm, with a hint of impending fall.

"What are you reading?"

Maureen had opened her eyes. She hadn't moved, but was staring at him. Angel held the book up. "The Count of Monte Cristo."

"Is that the one about the prison break?"

"It's about a sandwich that learns to add."

She laughed, the joyful noise fading off into a smile. She shifted on the couch, pulling one of the throw pillows under her head. "Is it any good?" she asked, nodding towards the book.

He shrugged. "I liked it."

"Can you read some of it?"

Angel gazed at her. Maureen had been their performer, their drama queen, the one that dashed into a situation without thinking. But she was so precautious now, so willing to hide and expect things to fail before they began. Her beauty was still there, a ghost, lost behind years of starvation and illness and scars… With time, that would return. They'd still have the scars and the memories, nothing could be completely washed away, but they'd have themselves once more. Maureen wanted rest and security. Angel wanted revenge—a raging battle.

"The beginning is kind of depressing."

"Depressing?" she snorted. "I think I can handle it." She shifted on the couch again, a wry smile over her face. "Because, amazingly enough Angel, I can brush my own hair and teeth, and, even more amazingly, I've been in a depressing situation for ten years."

Angel smiled at the black humor.

Maureen smiled in return. "Read the damn book."

He picked up the book once more, smoothing his fingers over the first page. He cleared his throat, mostly for the dramatic effect. Maureen wrinkled her nose in mock frustration. "Marseilles," he began. "The Arrival."

The first page was read with a dramatic flare that made Maureen giggle. As he read the second page and moved into the third, his voice became more disjointed and distant. Soon, he was gazing out the window, finger marking the page in the novel.

"What's wrong?" Maureen asked, reaching out across the small distance between the two couches. She poked his good knee.

"I'm just thinking."

"About Collins?"

"Does it show?"

"A little." She paused. "I bet if you ask Sue, she'd know where he is. Chances are, if we're being rescued, then plans are there to rescue Collins and Joanne."

"I think I'm afraid of the answer."

Maureen poked his good knee harder. "When have you ever been afraid of anything? There were times I wished you _were_ afraid of something, because I thought you'd be mugged and murdered in some dark alley."

"You _so_ did not worry about me like that."

"True." She paused. "But Joanne did!"

_That_ was more believable. Joanne had spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about them. At one point in time, she had asked Angel to draw up a will. He remembered smiling at her anxiety and saying, gently, Collins would take care of those things. His landlord knew that the apartment went to Collins, and Collins would, in turn, decide who got his things. He didn't have money in the bank or debt, so those were non-issues. No assets of value… Really, nothing to attach him to the material world…

"I'll ask her if you won't."

There. A spark of the old Maureen. "Maureen—"

"Sue!" she called, cutting off Angel's protest. Angel tried to glare at her, but didn't quite succeed, perhaps from his own anxiety about what had happened to Collins.

Sue's footsteps could be heard coming down the hall and she appeared in the doorway of the library. "What's up?" she asked easily.

"Do you know what happened to Collins and Joanne?" Maureen asked promptly, not hesitating a moment.

The doctor nodded slowly. She sank into one of the arm chairs in the room. "I don't know all the details," she began. "I was assigned to you two, so that was the case that I read the most on."

"But…" Maureen prompted.

"But," Sue conceded. "The same tech person pulled the information on all four of you. She had to organize and decrypt it before giving me your recent—and past—medical histories."

"Are they alive?"

Angel remained silent, willing to let Maureen answer the questions. She'd been in a relationship with a lawyer for the better part of a year. Despite her silence, she had jumped on the opportunity to grill Sue about Collins and Joanne. Perhaps, that meant she was healing. Or maybe, this was the first topic she'd been really interested in.

"Yes," Sue answered.

The 'but' was unspoken, but as loud as if Sue had shouted it across the room.

She sighed. "Well, they're both in the same facility—Sing-Sing, an underground complex, underneath the ruins of the old prison there."

"So they're alive?"

"Yes."

Another interminable silence.

Sue looked sorrowful. "I won't lie to you though." She paused. "Collins was classified as a psych prisoner. From what I saw of his records, the psychiatrists hadn't been able to make much progress with him in all the years he'd been there. They kept him in as a control—the resilient anomaly." She paused. "But an incident happened—don't ask me what, the file didn't say—and he's been placed in solitary confinement indefinitely."

"He's alive," Angel breathed.

"Yes."

"And Joanne?" Maureen sounded terrified and eager.

"She's been a viral candidate—like you two. She's alive, but her prognosis doesn't look good. After all this time, her heart's just giving out."

------------------

The world whipped past them. Another car ride, but this time, not hidden in the bed of a truck. Their various papers and documentation had arrived two days ago. Maureen had gained enough weight to satisfy Sue—at least enough for a trip. Angel could walk without a noticeable limp, and his leg didn't seize up as often. He, also, had gained enough weight to satisfy their resident doctor.

Sue had said, when their papers arrived, they needed to get ready to go to New York, where they'd be joining Mimi, Roger and Mark.

Angel let out a long breath and stared out the window. They were all silent. Since Sue had told them that Collins and Joanne were alive, that had been Maureen's obsession, the thing she had latched onto and poured all her energy into. She wanted to know what was being done, and how they could help. Sue didn't have all the details on those cases, since she'd been in Maine, with them, for the past few weeks. That didn't stop wild ideas and theories, including rehashing those old medical shows she had watched a decade ago and coming up with heroic feats to save Joanne.

But the truth was, they didn't know. And they wouldn't know until they got to New York and someone filled them in on what was happening.

And hope…

_There never was much hope. Only a fool's hope._

Had a fool's hope been the cause of their rescue? They'd been classified as dead for so long, and not just dead, it was like they'd never existed. Almost erased from existence, except in the memories of three people who'd never given up that wavering hope. That was almost poetic. Almost. If he hadn't realized how dangerous this was for them—if someone found out that they had been the driving force behind this break-out…

Angel shook his head, not wanting to think of the consequences. This regime was so obsessed with paperwork, that it was highly unlikely anyone would be able to wade through the documents and actually uncover something.

_Fighting… not apologizing for anything…_

Maureen reached out and took his hand. He smiled at her. They were in the backseat. Sue was up front, driving. Finally, they'd be in a place where they could put some of the pieces back together.

"You okay?" she asked softly.

"I don't think I'll ever be truly okay," he replied. "But I think some things will grow more distant, with time."

Maureen nodded. "Time heals everything." She paused for a moment, then shook her head and let out a sad laugh. "My mother used to hope I'd settle down as I got older. If anything, the opposite occurred." She shook her head again. "God, Mom, always hoping that I'd be the perfect daughter and pretending that I was. Only ever saw what she wanted to see."

Angel gave her a distant smile. He'd never talked much about his family, not to Maureen and some of the others. The only person who truly knew about them was Collins, who'd met them. Angel remembered when his mother adopted Collins into the family. His older sister had been the aspiring actress, working at a coffee shop until she got her big break. He'd been the flighty, artistic son, who managed to scrape by, despite all the expectations. And his parents… Christ, they'd loved him and, as long as he was happy, they were happy as well. Yes, they thought he'd made a few bad decisions, but, as his mother had said after the tears about the AIDS diagnosis passed, 'All young men have to stumble and fall somewhere along the way. It's what helps you remain upright in storms later.'

Chances were that their families were long gone. If not executed for harboring "traitors," then safely in another country or dead of starvation or disease.

Ten years… so much had happened. The places they'd lived and worked, all gone and replaced with something that he couldn't recognize.

"_I don't understand how you can drink all that herbal tea—tastes like sawdust!"_

"_It's good for you. It's got antioxidants."_

"_If I knew what those did or what they are, that would help."_

He squeezed Maureen's hand, staring out the window. Mimi always argued about the relatively healthy things Angel consumed.

"_Still trying to legalize pot?"_

"_There's no reason for it to be illegal." Pause. "If you really want the latest on that campaign, you need to ask Collins."_

"_At least pot actually has fringe benefits, unlike your sawdust tea."_

"_I bet you'd like the sawdust tea if I put vodka in it."_

Things were in short supply, Sue had explained. They could barely get coffee and tea, so forget alcohol, real butter or sugar. Everyone suspected that the rationing went to fill the pantries and pockets of government officials and business men, but no one said anything. Produce, amazingly, was one of the few things that hadn't been affected. Perhaps because bigwigs didn't like eating their vegetables. Angel could understand that—he'd always been a bigger fan of salad toppings than the actual lettuce in the salad.

_Late September…_

"_They're going to fire you if you don't start meeting classes."_

"_I don't care."_

"_Lover, I don't want you to lose your job."_

"_I don't care about that job. I can tutor. Angel, please, just let me be with you."_

Collins had lost his job at NYU for not meeting classes. He'd spent all his time at the hospital and, despite the fact that Angel wanted him to go to class, he wouldn't listen. Roger had once asked him to talk some sense into Collins over some issue or another. Angel remembered the reply.

"_What makes you think he listens to me?"_

But Collins had listened to him, almost too well. And even when he thought Collins wasn't listening, he picked up every word. But Collins wouldn't go on, wouldn't live a new life… _Not without you, baby._

"We'll be there in about half an hour," Sue called from the front seat.

Prisoners, mostly political prisoners rescued from the large, state prisons, facilities that were public knowledge, came and went through the Patriots' complexes all the time. Most were broken out of a jail and then smuggled out of the country. He and Maureen were the first two rescued from one of the facilities that wasn't supposed to exist. Sue wasn't sure what the hierarchy of the Patriots' reaction would be, but there was little they could do about it.

Maureen still needed a few weeks of rest. Sue told Angel to rest, but he wanted to push himself more, be able to help sooner… help them find Collins sooner.

He glanced at Maureen, taking in her apprehensive expression. She'd asked early on if Mark was married. The answer had always been no. Maureen and Mark, just as ex-lovers, were inextricably intertwined for the rest of their lives. For them, Angel suspected that there were still remnants of their love, their relationship… the reason why Mark had dropped everything to help fix her sound equipment or film a protest or… months later, and Maureen could ask Mark to do anything and he'd do it, no questions asked.

The rest of the trip passed quietly, the only noise coming from the outside world, muted behind the tinted windows of their car.

Soon enough, Sue pulled the car into a large garage. The building was next to another, larger building. Kids screamed and chased each other around the rickety swing set in a fenced in area in front of the building. A couple of adults watched them—teachers? Parents?

A small group of boys was in one corner of the area. The oldest appeared to be about seven. He was apparently their ringleader, because he kept motioning to a group of girls about their same age.

"We're here," Sue said unnecessarily.

They got out of the car, each taking a bag of belongings from the trunk. Sue led them along a path that led from the garage to the front entrance of the building. Angel scrutinized the boys, catching bits of their conversation as he passed. The ringleader looked so familiar and…

With a jolt, he realized that the boy looked exactly like Roger, but had Mimi's eyes and hair. Obviously his father's son from the way he was about the get into trouble. As if reading the boy's mind, a teacher called, "Don't even think about it, Tommy. You leave the girls alone."

Tommy sulked, kicking at the ground.

The youngest of the group of girls, recently saved from being terrorized by the boys, stuck out her tongue. Angel felt another pang, realizing that little girl must have been Mimi and Roger's daughter, taking after her mother. She clutched a rag doll and her brown hair was falling out of the hair clip, made of faux silk pink roses. Her older brother obviously didn't intimidate her. If Tommy took after Roger, his bark was worse than his bite.

Angel tugged Maureen's sleeve. She stopped, giving him a quizzical expression.

"Look," he said softly, nodding towards the children.

Maureen scanned the playground, her gaze landing on Tommy, then on the little girl, Jo. "No mistaking who they belong to," she said with a grin.

"You'll meet them later."

He started at the sound of Sue's voice. For a moment, he'd forgotten about her and checking into the complex. The doctor stood at the door to the facility. Angel nodded and continued down the path, Maureen following.

Sue ushered them into a cluttered lobby.

But he didn't register the boxes or stacks of supplies or random people running through with electronics. All he heard was a wonderfully familiar voice shriek, "Angel!"

_To be continued…_

------------------

**Author's Note II: **I forgot to say at the beginning, my summer job begins on Friday. I won't have much time during the week to work on this, so please be patient and bear with me. I hate to leave another lull again, but such is life.


End file.
